Robert Burns Monument, Alloway

The Robert Burns Monument, built in Alloway between 1818 and 1822, was designed by Thomas Hamilton in the Greek Revival style. The monument is a striking structure with a triangular base featuring canted corners, topped by an open circular monument. The base is constructed with a droved base course, channelled and vermiculated sandstone, and ashlar dressings.

The southwest elevation, which serves as the entrance, features steps leading to a central entrance framed by a splayed doorpiece. The recessed timber door is adorned with wreaths within sunken panels and star detailing. Above the doorpiece is a Greek key panel that breaks the eaves and cornice, creating a semi-pediment with decorative scrollwork. Above this, a polygonal-plan base supports a circular-plan base. Corinthian columns, fluted and of the Greek order, rise from this base, supporting a wreath frieze, dentilled eaves, and a dentilled soffit with a Greek key pattern and anthemion motifs to the panels. Acroteriae cap the structure, along with decorative stone foliate supports and urn detailing. A gilded tripod finial, an emblem of Apollo, surmounts the whole.

The southeast and northwest elevations mirror the southwest elevation, but instead of the entrance doorpiece, they feature blind niches. A small window is located to the left of the niche on the southeast elevation. The roof was unobserved in 1999.

Inside, the monument has a circular-plan stone floor. The interior features a Doric order with two columns in antis forming a niche, which houses a bust by Sir John Steell. Plain metopes decorate the Doric frieze, and the ceiling is composed of Greek key pattern panels. A glazed dome is topped by a garlanded bucranium frieze. The doorpieces, shouldered and splayed, are framed by timber doors with wreaths in sunken panels and star detailing. A door to the left leads to an iron-railed stone staircase that rises through open columns; the stairs and railings are of iron.

Decorative lamp standards are placed at the corner angles of the monument, featuring scrolled stone feet, circular-plan bases, painted circular-plan uprights, and domed iron lamp standards. A sundial located near the entrance has an elaborate baluster shaft that is bulbous in the centre and decorated with figurative heads. It also includes a table dial and a metal gnomon. Ornate iron railings top a boundary wall surrounding the Alloway site. An iron two-leaf gate provides access at the Alloway entrance, while a more recent two-leaf gate is situated at a side entrance. A coped boundary wall encloses the entire site.