Dogslacks

Dogslacks is a farmstead in the Parish of Middlebie, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright in Scotland.

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Middlebie

Middlebie is a hamlet and parish in the historic county of Dumfriesshire in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It is approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Ecclefechan, and 6 miles (9.7 km) north-east of Annan, on the banks of the Middlebie Burn. Middlebie Parish consists of the ancient parishes of Middlebie, Pennersax (Pennersaughs) and Carruthers, united in 1609. Middlebie was the seat of a Presbytery from some time after the Reformation until 1743. It was then divided to form the Presbyteries of Langholm and Annan. Middlebie parish is now in the Presbytery of Annandale & Eskdale. It is bounded by the parishes of Tundergarth, Langholm, Canonbie, Half Morton, Kirkpatrick Fleming, Annan and Hoddam. The villages of Eaglesfield, Middlebie and Waterbeck lie within the parish, with Kirtlebridge on its southern boundary. Eaglesfield and Hottsbridge by Waterbeck still have primary schools. The school at Middlebie closed in 1972, nearly a hundred years after it opened. The Eaglesfield building is now just over a hundred years old. The former school in Waterbeck village, built about 1900, is now the public hall. Eaglesfield's public hall was built in 1892–3. Middlebie's old hall (a wooden ex-army building purchased in 1928) was demolished and a new one built in 2001. The West Coast Main Line railway runs through the parish from London to Glasgow. Previously the Caledonian Railway, the line formerly had a station at Kirtlebridge, where the writer Thomas Carlyle would alight before walking up to his parents farm at Scotsbrig above Middlebie. From Kirtlebridge the Solway Junction Railway ran down to Annan and across by the Solway viaduct to Cumbria. It was built to transport iron ore to the Lanarkshire steelworks. In 1841 the population of the parish was 2,154 and about sixty of these people were handloom weavers. There were inns and shops and the Lime Works Blacketridge. Tradesmen listed in 1841 include joiners, shoemakers, tailors, cloggers, masons, millers, carters, grooms, gardeners, dressmakers, straw-hat makers, etc. Today, only Eaglesfield still has a general store and post office. In 1841, as well as 73 farmers, 314 people were employed as agricultural labourers and 60 more as servants. Notable people from Middlebie include Matron Jane Bell who was sent as an orphan to Australia and William Brown (1888–1975), professor of plant pathology and head of the botany department at Imperial College of Science and Technology.

Scotsbrig

Scotsbrig is a farm near Ecclefechan, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, and a Category B listed building. Thomas Carlyle lived there with his family in the summer of 1826 before moving to 21 Comely Bank, Edinburgh. Scotsbrig remained a residence of the Carlyle family for decades. The farmhouse underwent numerous additions and renovations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Carlyle recorded his first impressions in a letter to his brother John:The house is in bad order; but we hope to have it soon repaired; and for farming purposes, it is an excellent "shell of a house." Then we have a linn [waterfall] with crags and bushes, and a 'fairy knowe [knoll]' tho' no fairies that I have seen yet; and, cries our Mother, abundance of grand thready peats, and water from the brook, and no reek and no Honour to pester us! To say nothing, cries our father, of the eighten yeacre [acre] of the best barley in the country; and bog-hay, adds Alick, to fatten scores of young beasts! In fact making all allowance for newfangledness, it is a much better place, so far as I can judge, than any our people have yet been in; and among far better and kindlier sort of people. I believe of a truth they will find themselves much obliged to his Honour for persecuting them away. Long life to his Honour! I myself like the place considerably better, tho' I have slept but ill yet, and am billus enough. But I have mounted your old straw-hat again; and fairly betaken me to work; and should, as we say Aberdeen-awa, "be bauld to compleen."

1.9 km

Ecclefechan

Ecclefechan (Scottish Gaelic: Eaglais Fheichein) is a village located in Dumfries and Galloway in the south of Scotland. The village is famous for being the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle. Ecclefechan lies in the valley of the Mein Water, a tributary of the River Annan, 6+1⁄4 miles (10 kilometres) south of Lockerbie, five miles (eight kilometres) north of Annan and eight miles (thirteen kilometres) northwest of the English border. The A74(M) motorway runs immediately north of the village and Junction 19 is just northwest of the village. The High Street of the village has a burn which runs through a culvert below it. This culvert was constructed in 1875 by Dr George Arnott at his own expense.

Thomas Carlyle's Birthplace

Thomas Carlyle's Birthplace is a house in Ecclefechan, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in which Thomas Carlyle, who was to become a pre-eminent man of letters, was born in 1795. The house was built in 1791 by Carlyle's father James and James' brothers John and Tom, stonemasons all. It is owned by the National Trust for Scotland, registered as a Category A listed building. Architecturally, the home exemplifies 18th-century Scottish Vernacular. It first opened to the public in 1881 and remains much as it was then. Many of Carlyle's belongings are housed along with a collection of portraits and photographs relating to his life. Carlyle lived here with his brother John Aitken Carlyle who would go on to translate Dante's Inferno into English (1849). It was from here that Thomas Carlyle walked nearly one hundred miles in order to attend the University of Edinburgh at the age of 13, intending for the ministry.