Literary Passion · Dumfries, Dumfriesshire
The Globe Inn, Dumfries (Burns & Anna Park)
Burns called the Globe his 'favourite howff'; here he had a passionate affair with barmaid Anna Park that inspired the song 'The Gowden Locks of Anna'. Their daughter was raised by Burns's wife Jean Armour. The inn preserves Burns's chair and diamond-etched windowpane verses.
Sources
Nearby on the map
When England's 1754 Marriage Act required parental consent for under-21s, lovers simply crossed the first Scottish village on the coaching road — where declaration before witnesses was marriage enough. The blacksmith's anvil became the altar of eloping England, and remains one of the world's great wedding destinations.
Documented historyHot spotLiterary PassionDove Cottage (the Wordsworths at Grasmere)Grasmere, Cumbria · EnglandThe tiny lakeland cottage of William, his adored sister Dorothy — whose journals record wearing his wedding ring the night before he married — and his bride Mary. The intensity of the brother-sister bond has fascinated and divided scholars ever since; the documented record is devotion, and this entry claims nothing more.
Documented historyFolk Rite & FertilityRosslyn Chapel (the Green Men)Roslin, Midlothian · ScotlandA late-medieval chapel carved with more than a hundred Green Men — pagan faces sprouting vines inside a Christian church, the old fertility spirit grinning from every corner of the stonework. The greatest concentration of the motif anywhere in Britain.
Documented historySpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.