Burns Monument

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The Burns Monument in Kay Park, Kilmarnock, Scotland, commemorates the poet Robert Burns (1759-1796). It was opened in 1879, and is a category B listed building located at an elevated position within the Kay Park, to the east of Kilmarnock Town Centre.

Robert Burns was born in Alloway on the 25th January 1759. He came to Kilmarnock in 1786 to have his works printed, (the famous Kilmarnock Edition). The monument features a statue of The Bard. Robert Burns died in 1796. A statue of Robert Burns and John Wilson, the printer is situated in the middle of Kilmarnock Cross.

Kilmarnock has many links with Robert Burns; the first edition of his work was printed here in 1786, by John Wilson, a local printer. Of this first edition only 612 copies were printed, and copies of this rare book are now known as "Kilmarnock Editions".

The monument was designed by the Kilmarnock architect Robert Ingram, and has been described as "an eclectic fusion of Scots Baronial, neo-Gothic and Italianate, with a dash of Baroque and a hint of Romanesque."^{[citation needed]} At the front of the monument there is a statue of Burns by W. Grant Stevenson.

The monument was badly damaged by fire in November 2004. The two storey Museum Section, at the rear, and the semi-octagonal two-storey tower collapsed, leaving only the front stairs, porch, part of the ground floor outer walls and two of the main internal walls.

Planning permission was granted in September 2006, for the partial re-instatement of the Burns Monument, with an extension to provide a marriage suite, registration service and archive service.^[1] The extension envelopes the remaining staircase and portico, which houses the statue of Robert Burns, and provides a courtyard setting with the statue of Burns and the remaining section of the original monument as a focal point to the northern elevation of the courtyard. As of May 2008 the building works are still in progress.