A new online video will allow local people to help shape plans to save Robert Burns Ellisland Farm near Dumfries.
The video will allow the public to feedback on Ellisland’s FutureVision, an ambitious blueprint to make Ellisland more financially and environmentally sustainable – as a place for creative learning as well as a first-class visitor attraction to generate jobs for the region.
Thanks to funding from Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Community Led Vision Fund, there will be a digital engagement campaign to share plans to save the 1788 farm built by the poet himself.
The FutureVision for the site will be unveiled at Ellisland on Monday 27 February at a drop in event from 11am to 4pm.. It has been developed by leading consultancy Delfinity Ltd and OCA architects working with landscape and heritage consultants and the Robert Burns Ellisland Trust, The architects, trustees and planners behind it will be available to answer questions at the drop in on Monday.
Joan McAlpine, business development manager at Ellisland, urged local people to come along:
“We are very excited to unveil the project which is the result of six months work. The drawings on display will show how Ellisland could look in future, but will also explore how we can best preserve the past.
“Ellisland was where Burns wrote Auld Lang Syne and Tam o Shanter and is the most authentic and significant of all his surviving homes – because its setting is unchanged. The plans will also look at the setting and how to improve nature and biodiversity.
The £36k FutureVision is funded by SOSE and The Holywood Trust while The Community Led Vision grant of £14,000 will allow more people to feed in their views. The council funds will also purchase digital equipment and cover the cost of an essential Woodland management plan for Ellisland’s trees.
The Public engagement campaign comes at the end of a week celebrating Jean Armour, whose birthday is on 25th February. The Families Go Free activities include workshops in music, butter-making and Scots Language with demonstrations of spinning.
There is a temporary exhibition on Jean Armour, who moved to Ellisland in 1788 and spent the rest of her life in Dumfries. Visitors can also see items belonging to Jean who married Burns in 1788, which were recently returned to Dumfries Museums where there were in storage
On Saturday 25 February, there will be a concert with Robyn Stapleton and local Burnsian Jane Brown , celebrating Jean’s life. Food inspired by the Ellisland kitchen will be served – including the Burns Bannock created for Ellisland by the Little Bakery in Dumfries. Students from Dumfries and Galloway College Catering Department have created biscuits based on Jean’s recipe book which is displayed in Dumfries Museums.
