Robert Burns Trail

Robert Burns Trail in the North East

1. Robert Burns Memorial Cairn
2. First Site of the Robert Burns Stone Plaque
3. Gayfield House
4. Adam Christie Grave
5. William Lamb Studio
6. Robert Burns Statue
7. Montrose Museum
8. Burness House
9. Stables
10.Turks Head Inn
11. Ferryden Pier
12. Arbikie Distillery

 Our Club has created a Burns trail which will tie into several other relevant websites e.g. the Angus Council tourism website. The trail includes places in and around Montrose associated with Robert Burns. The trail can be visited from the North heading Southwards or indeed in any order you wish.  It is laid out on this website in a logical order from North to South as that is the direction in which Burns was travelling.

The trail identifies all the Points of Interest (POI’s) associated with Robert Burns and we will be using A5 size Stainless Steel plaques that include a QR code, which links to this website where you can see all the relevant detail.

To use a QR code simply use the camera on your smart device and activate the link it shows.  This will bring you to this website and to the “Robert Burns Trail in the North East” index page.  From there you can click any of the links to take you to the POI you are interested in.  Please enjoy the trail, whether you do it electronically here or even better by visiting the POI’s in person.

The trail includes stories of Burns, artefacts, buildings, sites in and around Montrose and people connected to his time in this area.
The trail allows everyone to follow and view all sites and artifacts within the Montrose area and hopefully encourages many a visitor to experience the trail first hand.

The MBC Archivist, Graeme Newton, led the drive to fund & create this website and trail.

 Graeme and fellow club members Dave Clark and David (Dave) Ramsay  worked with web designer, George McGillivray, Webecom Marketing, to create the website you see today.

Our work on the trail dovetails with the Montrose town tourist map; the Burns trail which Dave Ramsay created for the Mearns area and links with other Montrose organisations / businesses and with Angus Tourist board to promote the rich Burns heritage of our area to the public.

The original inspiration for a Burns Trail in and around Montrose came from Dave Ramsay himself when he gave the Immortal Memory toast at the Montrose Burns Club back in 2011, when Graeme was President.  At that time Dave took the guests on a journey that Burns and his companion William Nicol had taken down through the North East of Scotland and highlighted some of the great bards connections to our town. The seed was planted, although it took a while to grow!

MBC see the benefit of social media and we also have a Facebook page (Montrose Burns Club) which we use to promote the club.  You may wish to follow us on that and be kept up to date.

Until recently, MBC did not have a club logo, so in Feb 2023 the club asked graphic artist Sheena Bowman to create one for the club. MBC gave Sheena the remit to design and create a logo with reference to the heritage of Burns but including elements associated with Montrose.  We are delighted with the final result.

MBC are indebted to Sheena for providing her skills, effort and time which resulted in creation of the logo which we immediately put into good use on letterheads, our Facebook page, this website and of course on our Trail plaques.

A big thank you to all the owners of the Points of Interest on our trail for allowing us to place plaques on their property and supportimg our trail.