17th-century church
Auld Kirk of Ayr
The church that replaced St John's in 1654, where Robert Burns was baptised the day after he was born.
When Cromwell's citadel took over St John's Church, Ayr needed a new one. Colonel Alured arranged 1,000 merks of funding and the Auld Kirk was finished in 1654, on the site of a Franciscan friary that closed at the Reformation.
Robert Burns was baptised here on 26 January 1759 by the minister William Dalrymple. Inside are three wooden galleries for the trades, the merchants and the sailors. A model ship, the Arethusa, hangs from the ceiling of the sailors' gallery.
You reach it from the High Street through a lychgate dated 1656.
- Completed
- 1654
- Listed
- Category A
- Burns baptised
- 26 January 1759
Nearby
- Elaine Stewart MPConstituency MP · 114 m away
- Blue Bonnet TrailSigned heritage walk · 122 m away
- Wallace TowerVictorian tower · 129 m away
- Auld Brig o' AyrMedieval bridge · 196 m away
- The Cutty-Sark Centre and riverside squareEvents square and community building · 201 m away
- River Ayr WayLong-distance path · 219 m away
Where this comes from
Listing data from OpenStreetMap, way 125865983, last edited 25 September 2025. Something wrong or missing? Fix it on OpenStreetMap and it shows here after the next update.