A Group of Monuments in St Michael's Churchyard, Dumfries

Pencil drawings, including Burns Mausoleum by William Coston Aitken of Dumfries.   These detailed pencil drawings with white highlights are from the artist's sketchbook. They shows studies of some of the elaborately carved tombs and monuments of the old churchyard. In the centre is the domed structure of Burns Mausoleum. There are pencil annotations on architects and sculptors in the margins.   In the years following his death, Robert Burns' admirers came to believe that his simple grave was an insufficient memorial to the poet. In 1813,  John Syme formed a committee and launched an appeal to build a mausoleum in his memory. One of the subscribers was the Prince Regent, later George IV. After a public advertisement over 50 designs were received and the plans of T F Hunt, a London architect, were approved.   William Coston Aitken (1816 - 1875) was born, educated and married in Dumfries before moving to Birmingham around 1850. He sketched places in and around Dumfries from a young age and his work is a record of the built environment of the town and the landmarks of the surrounding countryside in the first part of the 19th century .