This unassuming house, in the quiet village of Ecclefechan, was the birthplace of one of Britain’s most influential nineteenth-century thinkers, Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881). Carlyle was born in the Arched House, built in 1791 by his father and uncle, both of whom were master masons. He went on to become a leading writer and historian of the Victorian age, numbering among his friends many prominent literary and philosophical figures, such as John Stuart Mill and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The three rooms of the museum provide a fascinating insight into nineteenth-century life in a small Scottish town. The interior of the house is furnished to reflect domestic life at the time of Carlyle, and contains an interesting collection of portraits and a small selection of Carlyle's personal belongings.