The Robert Burns Inn, Tinonee

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind…Robert Burns

On New Year’s Eve 1855, Scottish siblings William and Flora McKinnon and Flora’s husband William Wilkes sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in a wooden building located at the corner of Manchester and Winter Streets, Tinonee.¹ The next day, it opened as “The Robert Burns Inn”, a tribute to Scotland’s national poet.²

Tinonee (Dinuni in Gathang language)³ was poised to become one of the most important towns on the Manning River. It was the head of steam navigation, its land had been surveyed and offered for sale, and it was on the mail route to Port Macquarie.⁴

“The Robert Burns Inn” was the second public house in Tinonee after the “The Tinonee Inn”, offering meals, accommodation and stabling.⁵ William McKinnon owned the property and William Wilkes held the publican’s licence.⁶ It quickly became the centre of community gatherings.⁷ Wilkes fell ill two years after opening and McKinnon took over the licence. He soon found however that he did not like working indoors so renovated the building to sell. The inn had seven rooms, a cellar, kitchen, stables and blacksmith’s shop.⁸

Charlotte Windsor bought the property in 1861 and although her parents were publicans, she leased it as accommodation.⁹ The Grill family reportedly lived here in the early 1860s and their son Louis, an early Tinonee shoemaker, ran his shop here. Louis later bought the property in 1875.¹⁰ A number of other businesses were said to be based here.

By the late 1890s the building was rundown and when Captain Hector Gollan bought it at this time, he demolished it to make way for a sawmill.¹¹ “The Robert Burns Inn” is a link to Tinonee’s early Scottish connections.

Author: Janine Roberts