The Bard’s Room
This beautiful sunny room is a twin/superking room, with its own ensuite bathroom. The large window gives views over the back lawn and Craufurdland Water.
The room is dedicated to Robert Burns, who is one of Ayrshire’s most famous sons and whose first edition of poetry was published nearby in Kilmarnock. The Craufurdland link to Burns is that we own an original piece of Burns writing, as part of the castle archives. The four-line epitaph is written on a letter that had been sent to Burns when he was working as an Excise Officer in the town of Dumfries. The letter, a small piece of folded paper, has four panels with writing. One has the address, the next a short note to Burns regarding delivery of white wine, the third a simple subtraction (presumably by Burns), and the last has a four-line epitaph to Mrs Young of Youngfield. The lines read:
Here lies wi’ Deaths auld Grizel Grim
Lincludens ugly witch
O Death, what taste hav thou
To lies wi’ such a bitche.
The bard then went on to write a much longer poem “Grizel Grim”, thought to have been inspired by this original epitaph.
