How Robert Burns trod a path to the door of Scotland’s rich and influential

Farmer’s son at his poetic peak was feted during his walking tours, academics reveal

Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns, frequently celebrated as a simple “heaven-taught ploughman”, was an 18th-century socialite on a political mission, according to academic research about his walking tours of Scotland and the notes he made as he travelled and met fans in the Borders region, the Highlands and Lowland Scotland in 1787.

On the eve of annual Burns Night celebrations, scholars from the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow and National Library of Scotland have published details of the Ayrshire farmer’s son’s routes, the places he stayed and the people he met.

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