£12m Project Aims to Save Farm Where Robert Burns Wrote Auld Lang Syne

A major new initiative to save and restore poet Robert Burns’s Ellisland Farm has been launched by The Robert Burns Ellisland Trust.

The international fundraising 'The Saving the Home of Auld Lang Syne' campaign hopes to preserve the historic building in Scotland where Burns wrote Auld Lang Syne, Tam o'Shanter, My Heart’s In The Highlands, and Ye Banks And Braes, and use it as a cultural hub. 

Ellisland in Dumfriesshire, which was built by Burns in 1788 for his family when he was 29, suffers from severe damp, decay, and general structural deterioration. The Robert Burns Ellisland Trust was formed in 2020 to save the site and has already received financial support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, South of Scotland Enterprise, Museums Galleries Scotland, The Architectural Heritage Fund and the Holywood Trust.

Former MSP Joan McAlpine has been leading restoration plans at Ellisland is currently project director. She said: “This campaign is about reconnecting people with the landscape and creativity that shaped Burns’s greatest works. We’ve undertaken extensive research and consultation to understand what Ellisland needs structurally and to explore what it could become. It has immense potential as both a cultural destination and an engine for regional economic regeneration." 

Detailed designs and plans to recreate the farm as it was during Burns' lifetime including a dedicated museum space are due to be made public in early 2026. The project will also include visitor accommodation based on The Hermitage, the small nearby summerhouse where Burns wrote, and numerous similar “Hermitages” where artists and writers can work.