Brownsbank Cottage

Brownsbank Cottage is a small, probable 19th-century farm labourer's cottage, likely built in the second quarter of the 18th century. It is a single-story, three-bay building. The cottage is rubble-built with ashlar dressings, and has sashes with a four-pane glazing pattern. End stacks provide chimney functionality, and the roof is slate. A large porch at the front and a kitchen at the rear have been added and are rendered with harling. The poet Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve, 1892-1978) resided in the cottage from 1951 until his death in 1978. MacDiarmid was a central figure in the Scottish literary renaissance and is considered by some to be Scotland's greatest poet since Burns. An inscribed slab at the doorstep commemorates MacDiarmid’s poem, "The little white Rose," which includes the lines "The rose of all the world is not for me/I want for my part/Only the little white rose of Scotland/That smells sharp and sweet and breaks the heart." Wooden sheds and a glazed timber summerhouse are situated to the northwest of the cottage.