Author : Raymond Hood
ISBN : 9781840337938
Cover : paperback
Price : £11.95

Once part of the Debatable Lands and riven by cross-border fighting, these villages came into the modern world courtesy of Thomas Telford when he built his Carlisle to Glasgow road in 1820, which later became the A74. Later still all these villages were bypassed by the M74 motorway. The delightfully named Ecclefechan is best known as the 1795 birthplace of Thomas Carlyle, a writer whom we have all heard of. Alas few of us can name any of his works, fewer still have read them. Waterbeck owes its origins to pig breeding by distant relatives of Thomas Carlyle. Kirtlebridge was the scene of a 1906 railway accident, some photos of which are included. Eaglesfield’s claim to fame is the longest village main street in the south of Scotland! Also included in the book are Kirkpatrick Fleming, Nether Kirkpatrick, and Irvington which sadly is not in the book’s mouthful of a title.