Self-guided tours of Burns Cottage plus museum housing manuscripts, books, artefacts and artwork.
The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum offers a truly unique encounter with Scotland's favourite son.
Start your visit in the museum building and enjoy this 21st century tribute to Burns. It houses the world's most important collection of Burns' original works and personal belongings, in a bright and modern building. The museum has an attractive cafe serving light meals and refreshments and shop with a wide selection of unique gifts and souvenirs. Look out for exhibitions and events throughout the year.
After visiting the museum, visit the birthplace of Scotland's national poet; why not explore the Burns Monument in Kilmarnock, the Brig o'Doon or Alloway's Auld Kirk.
Accessibility
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum has been deliberately designed to be easy to get around.
The two main sites (Burns Cottage and the Museum) are connected by the Poet’s Path, a 500 metre-long pedestrian walkway. On busier days, our volunteers run a regular electric shuttle along it.
Both the Museum and Burns Cottage (in the Education Pavilion building next door) have accessible toilets.
There’s disabled parking and level access at Burns Cottage and the Museum. The Poet’s Path is also level, while the Burns Monument Gardens can be accessed by wheelchair users.
Guide dogs are welcome throughout the site. Exhibition, education areas and meeting rooms are fitted with induction loops. Wheelchairs are available for any visitors who need them.
The more historic parts of the site, such as the Auld Kirk, Brig o’ Doon and Burns Monument, have uneven steps and surfaces. Staff will be delighted to help all visitors get around and get the most from their visit.
‘Accessible openings, 1st Tuesday of every month, 3pm – 5pm’.
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum – interactive screens and sound effects will be switched off, and cleaning lights will be switched on.
Burns Cottage – sound effects will be switched off.
As an accredited Museums Association museum, RBBM is proud to be welcoming and inclusive to all audiences. We aim to encourage and enable as many people as possible to enjoy our collection. Whilst our interactive and audio visual elements are a fantastic way for many to engage with the exhibition, some of our visitors find them overwhelming and for this reason we are creating accessible opening times for two hours in the afternoon of the first Tuesday of every month when audio visual aspects will be switched off. Some of our visitors also find the low light levels (necessary for the conservation of our important objects and manuscripts) difficult, so we will turn the lights up during this time.
