Village on the A76, 9 m. SE of Kilmarnock, which Burns often visited when he was living (1777–89) at Lochlea and Mossgiel. He fell in love with Jean Armour, daughter of a master mason who found him ineligible. He also met the lawyer Gavin Hamilton here, at whose house next to the 15th-c. Mauchline Tower he at last married Jean Armour in 1788. They rented a room in Castle St. (which now forms the centre of the Burns House Museum), and Poosie Nansie's tavern (still an inn) in Loudoun St. features in ‘The Jolly Beggars’. The churchyard has a plan showing the graves of four of Burns's children and of many characters mentioned in his poems. It is also the setting for ‘The Holy Fair’, a satire on the annual gathering for Communion. The church, where Burns was often punished for his misdemeanours, has been rebuilt.
The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain & Ireland. © 2008
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