Brownhill Inn, now just called Brownhill, is situated approximately 1 mile South of Closeburn, on the A76, which itself is about 2 miles south of Thornhill, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built in approximately 1780, the property has undergone extensive changes and only the South side of the original property remains. The property used to include stables but these have since been sold and converted.
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Robert Burns
Robert Burns was purported to have spent many a night at the Inn, which lies about 7 miles north of his once home, Ellisland Farm. The Landlord at the time, Mr Bacon, took a keen interest in the poet and even bought the bed the Burns was born in which came to the Inn. When asked by some companions to prove that it was really him that they were dining with, Burns made up on the spot the following verse:
At Brownhill we always get dainty good cheer
and plenty of bacon each day in the year;
we've a thing that's nice, and mostly in season —
But why always Bacon? — Come, tell me the reason?
It is also reported that whilst staying at the Inn, Burns met a soldier and was inspired to write his famous song "The Soldier's Return" His other recorded pursuits at the Inn included engraving a glass tumbler and a window pane (which the contents of which were so crude was destroyed to save his reputation). It is also recorded that One Monday even' he sent a rhymed epistle to William Stewart, beginning"
"In honest Bacon's ingle-neuk,
Here maun I sit and think;
Sick o' the world and world's folk,
And sick, d-mn'd sick o' drink...."
William Stewart was the father of "lovely Polly Stewart", and the brother-in-law to Mr Bacon the Landlord.
Other Famous Faces
As well as Robert Burns, other famous poets also stayed at the inn. It is noted in Dorothy Wordsworth's diary, that she, her brother William and Samuel Coleridge also stayed here during their tour of Scotland. However it seems that she was not quite as taken with the inn as Burns writing "as pretty a room as a thoroughly dirty one could be a square parlour painted green, but so covered over with smoke and dirt that it looked not unlike green seen through black gauze."
Recent History
In more recent times, the property has been a farm, including cheesemaking and, according to local lore, a courthouse and hotel. It is now a private family home and photography studio.