Robert Burns - Hillside, Angus, Scotland
Posted by: 
creg-ny-baa
N 56° 44.716 W 002° 29.319
30V E 531275 N 6289147
Memorial at the end of Rosemount Road in the Angus village of Hillside, commemorating Robert Burns visit here to water his horse after visiting the Burns ancestral home up north in the Mearns.
Waymark Code: WM196P8
Location: Northern Scotland, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/09/2023
Views: 1
This Robert Burns memorial can be found next to a car parking area amidst woodland at the end of Rosemount Road heading north-west out of the village of Hillside in the north-east of the Scottish county of Angus.
The original memorial was carved into a wall at nearby Sunnyside Hospital, a long time sanatarium, now closed. It was set up in 1930 by Ward Orderlies, Joseph Harris and Willie Herd, along with Superintendent, C.J. Swan, who commissioned the former patient of 50 years at the hospital, Shetlander, Adam Christie to carve the inscription '1930 ROBERT BURNS SEPTEMBER 13 1787'. This referred to Burns stopping off in the area to water his horse on the way back down the eastern coast of Scotland after visiting his father's ancestral home at Clochnahill, just south of Stonehaven in the Mearns to the north of here. Travelling from Laurencekirk to Montrose, this was where he stopped on his only visit to the north-east of Scotland.
The carving was largely undiscovered until recently by the Montrose Burns Club, who decided to move the stone due to damage caused by tree roots, and incorporate it into a new memorial on Rosemount Road next to a walker's car parking area.
The stone is now under a stylised bust of Burns set into an alcove on a semi circular plinth-like cairn. A low circular wall leads to the memorial that lies just north of the car park at the beginning of a trail on the Rosemount Estate.