southern suburb of the town of Ayr, South Ayrshire council area, historic county of Ayrshire, Scotland, famous as the birthplace of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns (Burns, Robert). There is a museum alongside the thatched cottage where he was born in 1759 and a memorial built in 1820 in the form of a Grecian temple. The Brig o' Doon, immortalized in Burns's poem “Tam o' Shanter,” is nearby.