House visited by Robert Burns and Willi Nicol in Hillside, Angus

Image: © Adrian Diack Taken: 16 Jul 2025

The photo shows Gayfield House on Hospital Road, in Hillside, where Robert Burns and Willi Nicol visited on the 12th September 1787, while on their journey from Laurencekirk to Montrose. By this stage on their tour, through the Mearns, they had been met by a welcoming party to see them enter into Angus, over the River North Esk, with the party consisting of Burns’s cousin James Burnes of Montrose, Mr Carnegie of nearby Craigo House and Provost Christie, who resided at Gayfield House, previously called Townfield House. Once over the Upper Northwater Bridge, which Mr Carnegie was likely to know well because he lived nearby, the party rode on to Mr Carnegie’s mansion house for a visit. From Craigo House the party proceeded in the direction of Montrose but first stopped off for a visit at Townfield House, the home of Provost Christie. It is likely that it was at that time that Burns watered his horse, as that location is very close to what is now Gayfield House. Robert Burns kept in close touch with his cousin James Burnes, and during their regular correspondence, it was arranged that Robert would pay James a visit in Montrose while on his return journey to Edinburgh. This suited Burns’s objectives for his tour very nicely, for he had various aims that included collecting old folksongs and music from the Highlands, visiting patrons of the arts who might buy his poetry, seeing more of his native land and changes that were taking place there and satisfying a desire to reconnect with his family roots by visiting such places as Clochnahill Farm near Stonehaven that had been tenanted by his father; Dunnottar Castle, where his grandfather Robert Burnes had been a gardener; and Glenbervie Churchyard, where several of his ancestors were buried, including his great-grandfather James and his great-grandmother Margaret. Burns' connections to his fatherland of the Mearns stretched back to around 1615 with the birth of his great-great-grandfather at Bogjorgan Farm. At this stage in his life, Burns had only lived in his native Ayrshire and in Edinburgh, but he had a desire to reconnect with the family in northeast Scotland and to meet his first cousin James Burnes, who was a schoolmaster in Montrose. In the event, this first meeting of the cousins Robert and James also proved to be their last because it was the only time they met before the untimely passing of Robert at the age of 37.

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