Tragic Romance · Failford, Ayrshire (South Ayrshire)
Highland Mary's Monument / River Ayr trysting bank
Tradition holds Burns and 'Highland Mary' Campbell exchanged vows over a Bible across a stream near here in 1786 — while he was simultaneously entangled with pregnant Jean Armour. Mary died within months, and Burns mourned her in verse for the rest of his life.
Sources
Nearby on the map
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
Documented historyScandal & Society17 Danube Street (Dora Noyce's establishment)Edinburgh, Midlothian · ScotlandBehind a genteel Georgian door in respectable Stockbridge, Dora Noyce ran Edinburgh's most celebrated house of ill repute for over thirty years — twinset, pearls and Conservative Party membership, greeting the fleet with 'business is always good when the Navy's in'. She preferred the term 'YMCA with extras'.
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.