Scotland’s National Poet – Robert Burns – lived at Mossgiel Farm between 1784 and 1786. This is what Burns had to say about his experience in a letter to Dr Moore:
‘I read farming books; I calculated crops; I attended markets; and in short, in spite of “The Devil, the world and the Flesh”, I believe I would have been a wise man; but the first year from unfortunately buying in bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we lost half of both our crops: this overset all my wisdom… My brother wanted my hare brained imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness, but in good sense and every sober qualification he was far my superiour.’
A list of the works Burns wrote while working the fields of Mossgiel:
- ‘The Vision‘
- ‘The Address to the Unco Guid’
- ‘Epistles to J Lapriak’
- ‘Hallowe’en’
- ‘The Jolly Beggars’
- ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’
- ‘The Ordination’
- ‘The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer’
- ‘‘The Address to the Deil’
- ‘The Holy Fair’
- ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’
- ‘Death and Dr Hornbook’
- ‘Scotch Drink’
- ‘The Twa Dogs’
- ‘To A Mouse’
