Thomas Carlyle’s House

Thomas Carlyle lived in the house to the left of the picture (couldn’t get it straight on as the hedge was in the way) between 1826 and 1828. The house was built in 1818, so it was pretty new at that stage. I’ve always wondered what it was like around here at that time. 

Carlyle described the house:

“Thus pass our days, in our trim little cottage, far from all the uproar, and putrescence (material and spiritual) of the reeky town, the sound of which we hear not, and only see over the knowe the reflection of its gas-lights against the dusky sky, and bless ourselves that we have neither part nor lot in the matter. I assure you, many a time on a soft mild night, I smoke my pipe in our little flowergarden, and look upon all this, and think of all absent and present friends, and feel that I havegood reason to "be thankful that I am not in Purgatory."


He didn’t have a 29 bus going past his door then!