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Updated: June 14, 2025
When Burns removed from Ellisland to Dumfries, he took up his abode in a small house of three apartments in the Wee Vennel. Here he stayed till Whitsunday 1793, when the family removed to a detached house of two storeys in the Mill Vennel. A mere closet nine feet square was the poet's writing-room in this house, and it was in the bedroom adjoining that he died.
It is believed that in his last years he was one of the first of the gentlemen of Picardy to adhere to the Reformed faith. The horseman rode down the narrow vennel which led to the St. Denis gate of Paris, holding his nose like a fine lady. Behind him the city reeked in a close August twilight.
But I bear him no grudge; I'll hae a taste o' that whisky, though I'm no mindin' so much about the tea. The sooner we're at the place the better, for I'll be bound there'll be more tea bought this day in Muirtown than a' the last year." And there was a general feeling that the Vennel had better make no delay, lest some other locality should obtain the first call.
These were in the Saltmarket, close on the river front, and to reach them I went by the short road through the Friar's Vennel. It was an ill-reputed quarter of the town, and not long before had been noted as a haunt of coiners; but I had gone through it often, and met with no hindrance.
Upon the whole, this was a busy year in the parish, and the seeds of many great improvements were laid. The king's road, the which then ran through the Vennel, was mended; but it was not till some years after, as I shall record by-and-by, that the trust-road, as it was called, was made, the which had the effect of turning the town inside out.
Div ye no ken, ye misshapen object, that we're here on a special invitation of yir master, sent this mornin' to the Vennel?"
Before ten they had found and secured the rogues, and by three of the afternoon, as they rode up the Vennel with their prisoners, they were aware of a concourse of people bearing in their midst something that dripped.
His coming was always welcome in the poorer parts of the town, for the sake of his discourse on London, but never had he received such an ovation before in the Vennel, which was largely inhabited by tramps and tinkers, unskilled labourers and casuals of all kinds.
Just opposite to this vennel, there is another that leads north-west, from the chiefe street to the green, which is a pleasant plott of ground, enclosed round with an earthen wall, wherein they were wont to play football, but now at the Gowff and byasse-bowls.
In the vennel stood a tall dark bit of masonry called Gilmour's Lordship, which was pierced by long closes from which twisting stairways led to the upper landings. I was noting its gloomy aspect under the dim February moon, when a man came towards me and turned into one of the closes.
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