Ellisland Farm

This project involves the comprehensive conservation and redevelopment of a nationally significant heritage site: the Category A listed farm buildings once built and inhabited by Robert Burns. The scheme combines sensitive restoration with thoughtfully integrated new-build elements to create a contemporary museum and cultural destination that preserves the authenticity of the historic steading while expanding its function for a modern audience.

The conservation works focus on stabilising and repairing the original farm buildings using traditional materials and techniques, reversing previous alterations and reinstating lost character where appropriate. Each structure has been carefully surveyed to understand its historic fabric, ensuring that all interventions strengthen its long-term resilience. These restored buildings now accommodate a rich mix of uses, including exhibition galleries that explore Burns’ life and legacy, flexible education rooms, a dedicated performance space for poetry and music, and supporting retail and café facilities.

New-build components, designed to complement rather than imitate the historic forms, provide additional visitor and operational spaces, as well as new holiday accommodation located within the wider rural landscape. A cohesive landscaping strategy unifies the dispersed buildings into a single experiential sequence, guiding visitors through outdoor rooms, routes and framed views that evoke the farm’s agricultural past.

The result is an immersive cultural environment that honours Burns’ heritage while offering a vibrant, accessible and sustainable visitor experience.