Robert Burns mausoleum and headstones vandalised in Dumfries

Police are hunting vandals who desecrated the Burns Mausoleum in a churchyard at Dumfries.

Graffiti has been daubed over gravestones and the mausoleum where Scotland’s national Bard lies in St Michael’s Churchyard near Dumfries town centre.

Police are trying to find the person or persons who carried out the vandalism early this morning, Monday 18 September.

The minister, the Rev Maurice Bond, said he was shocked by the graffiti which had been put all over gravestones, the church door and Burns’ Mausoleum.

“I’m not angry, I’m just saddened by this pointless vandalism. I can’t understand why anyone would want to do such a thing.”

The sign of satan has been sprayed or painted on the Mausoleum as well as the headstones and even the front door of the historic church was attacked.

Robert Burns spent the last years of his life in the Dumfries area where he died of rheumatic fever in 1796.

He was buried in the churchyard at St Michael’s, but later in 1815, his body was transferred to the mausoleum, which was build in the churchyard and paid for by public subscription.

Every year there is a special service at the church and mausoleum.

Dumfries and Galloway Police said: