Socks owned by Robert Burns and his wife’s wedding ring have been found to be among the most viewed items in an online portal featuring relics from his life.
The National Trust for Scotland launched the portal, which gives access to more than 2,500 items in its Burns collection, in spring last year.
The most viewed item over the past nine months has been a wooden box containing the wedding ring of Jean Armour, the poet’s wife, flanked on each side by two other rings which hold pieces of their hair.
A pair of blue woollen knitted socks with the initials “RB” at the top, believed to have been worn by Burns, was the second most popular artefact. The size eight socks date to around 1770-1796.
The third most viewed relic was a fragment of the manuscript for Auld Lang Syne, while the fourth was a letter to theatre-owner George Sutherland.
A lock of Mary Campbell’s hair, with whom Burns had made plans to emigrate to Jamaica, made up the top five most popular items to view.
National Trust for Scotland (NTS), which cares for the largest collection of Burns artefacts as well as the cottage he was born in, revealed the news ahead of Burns Night on Saturday.
Caroline Smith, NTS operations manager at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, South Ayrshire, said: “This list features some of my personal favourites from our collection.
“It seems to be the personal objects that resonate with people, and that they help them form a connection with Burns the man, the ordinary guy who wore socks, just as much as the famous words he wrote.
“The box of rings is an amazing item as it was quite popular at the time to keep a lock of hair, but it’s very special that the rings have survived all these years.
“Jean’s wedding ring is a precious item symbolising Burns’s everlasting love, and it’s hard not to feel the sentiment behind this.
“I think the initialled socks are incredible – just imagine your socks being kept and displayed in a museum almost 230 years after your death.
“There’s something very humbling about them – they have clearly been worn and therefore mended a lot by someone, probably Jean, with a lot of care.
It’s a simple object but when I see pictures of Burns amongst society in Edinburgh, I imagine him wearing these socks.
“Auld Lang Syne is probably Burns’s most famous song, and one of the collection’s hero objects.
“With only six manuscript copies of the song still known to exist, it is a significant piece of Scottish cultural heritage and one of great international importance too.”
The letter to Sutherland features bird doodles on the back, which Ms Smith said she thinks “shows Burns’s playful side”.
The trust cares for other important sites in the life of Burns, including the Bachelors’ Club and Souter Johnnie’s Cottage also in South Ayrshire, where it is undertaking ongoing conservation projects to preserve the historic buildings.
It will cost £330,000 to complete the works and NTS said it requires £130,000 not currently covered by funding.
There have been 2045 views of the online collection since April last year, and it can be found at https://www.nts.org.uk/collections/robert-burns-collection.
