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The main street of the now
quiet village of Ecclefechan was once a busy
thoroughfare. For over 250 years the main road
from London to Glasgow passed through here and
brought with it considerable traffic. The
re-routing of the A74 and its later upgrading to
the M74 mean that this once bustling place is now
a quiet backwater, with motorists rushing north
from Carlisle catching but a fleeting glimpse as
they flash by.
In the days of stage-coach
travel, the Glasgow to London coach on its six-day
journey would pause at a coaching inn, now the
Ecclefechan Hotel, boosting the local economy and
increasing the village's importance.
As the road signs proclaim,
Ecclefechan was the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle,
famous philosopher and historian. He was born in
1795. At the age of 11 months, in response to the
tears of another child, it is claimed that he said
his first words: "What ails we Jock?". The cottage
where he lived as a child is now run as a museum
by the National Trust for Scotland and houses a
recreation of an 1800s cottage.
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