No driveway specialist listed in Ecclefechan yet.

A driveway specialist lays new driveways and refurbishes existing ones - block paving, tarmac, resin-bound stone and concrete, including the sub-base and drainage that determine whether the surface lasts.

Front gardens of more than five square metres need planning permission unless the surface is permeable or drains to a soakaway, so check before laying impermeable materials.

Get the falls right - water should run off the driveway, not pool against the house - and ask for an SUDS-friendly approach if the area is prone to surface water.

Ecclefechan is a small village in Annandale, best known as the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle - the Victorian historian, essayist and philosopher whose work influenced 19th-century thought across Europe.

Carlyle's birthplace, an arched house on the main street, is preserved by the National Trust for Scotland and is open to visitors in summer.

The village has a quiet, traditional character with a few local shops and the kind of compact, stone-built centre typical of the small towns of Annandale.

Ecclefechan sits just off the A74(M) between Lockerbie and Gretna, easily accessible but easy to miss if you're not looking for it.

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Dumfries and Galloway is the most south-westerly council area in Scotland, stretching from the English border at Gretna to the Mull of Galloway - the southernmost point in Scotland - and from the Solway Firth coast inland to the hills of the Southern Uplands.

Dumfries is the largest town and administrative centre, a handsome red sandstone burgh on the River Nith where Robert Burns spent the last years of his life and is buried in St Michael's Kirkyard.

The region divides naturally into three historic areas: Dumfriesshire to the east, Kirkcudbrightshire (the Stewartry) in the centre and Wigtownshire to the west - each with its own character, landscape and loyalties.

The Galloway coast and countryside have a mild climate influenced by the Gulf Stream, fertile farmland, dark-sky reserves and a string of small harbour towns that attract artists, writers and visitors drawn to the quiet and the landscape.

Despite its size, the region is one of the most sparsely populated in Scotland - a place where community is strong, the pace is slower and the landscape ranges from river valleys and rolling farmland to wild moorland and rocky coastline.