Drukken Steps

The Drukken, Drucken Steps or Drunken Steps were stepping stones across the Red Burn in Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland and are associated with Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns. Drukken is used on the commemorative cairn plaque, but Druken or Drucken may also be used.

The Drukken, or in English, the 'Drunken Steps' in the old Eglinton Woods near Stanecastle at NS 329 404, were a favourite haunt of Burns and his friend Richard Brown whilst the two were in Irvine in 1781 – 82. A commemorative cairn off Bank Street at MacKinnon Terrace in Irvine, next to the expressway, stands several hundred yards from the site of the Drukken stepping stones across the Red Burn, also said to be the site of Saint Bryde's, Brides or Bridget's well. Until 2009 it was generally thought that the Drukken Steps had been buried beneath the road surface of the Kilwinning bypass.

In 1799 the Earl closed the road beyond the Drucken Steps to 'protect' his new policies, providing a diversion which ran via Knadgerhill.

The stepping stones remained in situ without any bridge present until at least the late 1960s. The Red Burn was wider with a greater flow at that time, and the flow would have been even greater when Littlestane Loch, located near the old farm of that name, still existed.

The original plaque had been inserted in the old estate boundary wall at the site of the stepping stones, having been donated to the Irvine Burns Club by Sir Andrew R. Duncan of Irvine in 1927.

The name 'Drukken' steps derives from a person's apparently drunken gait as they stepped from stone to stone whilst crossing the burn. Seven or more stones were originally set in the Red Burn which was much wider than now (2009). Burns himself used the Scots spelling 'Drucken' rather than 'Drukken' or 'Druken'. The Scots word 'drouk', meaning 'drench' is another possible derivation. Strawhorn refers to the site as the 'Drunken Steps' or 'Drucken Steps'.

The lower inscription (1927) on the commemorative cairn states:

Eglinton Woods, Drukken Steps (St Bryde's Well), Favourite Walk (1781–82) of Robert Burns and his sailor friend Richard Brown. "Do you recollect a Sunday we spent together in Eglinton Woods? R.B." 30 December 1787. Irvine Burns Club, 25 January 1927.

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