Socks, locks and wedding rings - the 5 most popular Robert Burns relics revealed

National Trust for Scotland (NTS) holds more than 2,500 items relating to the poet’s life and has now listed the pieces that have proven most popular with the public.

The most viewed item in an online portal of the collection was 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 the couple’s 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 George Sutherland, owner of the Theatre Royal in Dumfries, which contained a 34-line poem to be performed at a New Year performance in January 1790.

A lock of hair belonging to Mary Campbell, or Highland Mary, with whom Burns had made plans to emigrate to Jamaica during a brief love affair in 1786, made up the top five most popular items to view.

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, described some of the items as “very humbling” and said they helped people connect with the man and poet.

Ms Smith 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. t’s a simple object, but when I see pictures of Burns amongst society in Edinburgh, I imagine him wearing these socks.”

Ms Smith described the Auld Lang Syne as “probably Burns’s most famous song” and the manuscript as one of the collection’s “hero objects”.

She said: “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 covered by funding.