Mount Oliphant

Mount Oliphant is a mid-18th century house with later additions and alterations, forming a single storey and attic, three-bay house with adjoining outbuilding wings creating an open courtyard. The house is predominantly constructed of whitewashed rubble.

The east (entrance) elevation is near-symmetrical. The central bay has a modern timber door flanked to the left by a modern window on the ground floor, with windows to the flanking bays to the left and right. Two modern rectangular dormers are set into the attic floor. Single bay links connect the house to the outbuilding wings to the left and right; the left wing has a glazed boarded timber door and a window, while the right wing is advanced further out. The inside returns are not visible from 1999 records.

The north elevation is largely blank, with three irregular openings to the outer right, and skylights to the attic floor. The west elevation was not seen in 1999. The south elevation shows the roof sweeping down to the left bays, with the remainder of the elevation unobserved in 1999.

The windows are timber sash and case with four panes and modern glazing. The roof is covered in graded grey slate with a lead ridge. Stone skews feature blocked skewputts. The house has coped gablehead stacks topped with circular cans, alongside cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior was not inspected in 1999.

Originally known as South High Corton, Mount Oliphant was owned in 1758 by James McDermeit Fergushill, who sold it to Dr William Fergusson of Doonholm, along with the farmland. Around 1766, Fergusson rented the house and land to William Burnes, father of Robert Burns. Robert Burns (1759-1796) resided there between the ages of 7 and 19, and the location “familiarised him with ‘Alloway Kirk’, the ‘Banks and Braes o'Bonnie Doon’, and other themes of his poetry." According to historical records, the soil was poor, and the family experienced hardship. Despite later alterations, the farm of Mount Oliphant retains its original courtyard layout. The building is referenced on Andrew Armstrong's A New Map of Ayrshire from 1775, and in The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), along with Ordnance Survey maps from 1860 and 1897, and in FH Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1892).