Eyam () is an English village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales that lies within the Peak District National Park. There is evidence of early occupation by Ancient Britons on the surrounding moors and lead was mined in the area by the Romans. A settlement was founded on the present site by Anglo-Saxons, when mining was continued and other industries later developed. However, Eyam's main claim to fame is the story of how the village chose to go into isolation so as to prevent infection spreading after bubonic plague was discovered there in 1665.
In the later 20th century, the village's sources of livelihood largely disappeared. The local economy now relies on the tourist trade, with Eyam being promoted as "the plague village".
Governance Eyam has its own Parish Council with a wide range of powers at community level. At district level, Eyam has representation on Derbyshire Dales District Council and this, in turn, is represented on Derbyshire County Council. At parliamentary level, the village lies within the constituency of Derbyshire Dales.
History Lead mining seems to have had a continuous history in the Eyam district since at least the Roman era and there is evidence of habitation from earlier. Stone circles and earth barrows on the moors above the present village have largely been destroyed, although some remain and more are recorded. The most notable site is the Wet Withens stone circle on Eyam Moor. Coins bearing the names of many emperors provide evidence of Roman lead-mining locally. However, the village's name derives from Old English and is first recorded in the Domesday Book as . It is a dative form of the noun ('an island') and probably refers to a patch of cultivable land amidst the moors, or else to the settlement's situation between two brooks.
In the churchyard is an Anglo-Saxon cross in Mercian style dated to the 8th century, moved there from its original location beside a moorland cart track. Grade I listed and a Scheduled Monument, it is covered in complex carvings and is almost complete, but for a missing section of the shaft.
The present parish church of St. Lawrence dates from the 14th century, but evidence of an earlier church there can be found in the Saxon font, a Norman window at the west end of the north aisle, and Norman pillars that are thought to rest on Saxon foundations. There have been alterations since the Middle Ages, including a large sundial dated 1775 mounted on a wall outside. Some of the rectors at the church have had contentious histories, none less than the fanatically Royalist Sherland Adams who, it was accused, "gave tythe of lead ore to the King against the Parliament", and as a consequence was removed from the living and imprisoned.
The lead mining tithe was due to the rectors by ancient custom. They received one penny for every 'dish' of ore and twopence farthing for every load of hillock-stuff. Owing to the working of a newly discovered rich vein during the 18th century, the Eyam living was a valuable one. Mining continued into the 19th century, after which better sources were discovered and a change-over was made to the working and treatment of fluorspar as a slagging agent in smelting. The last to close was the Ladywash Mine, which was operative between 1948 and 1979. Within a 3-mile radius of the village there are 439 known mines (some running beneath the village itself), drained by 49 drainage levels ('soughs').
According to the 1841 Census for Eyam, there were 954 inhabitants living in the parish, chiefly employed in agriculture, lead mining, and cotton and silk weaving. By the 1881 Census, most men either worked as lead miners or in the manufacture of boots and shoes, a trade that only ended in the 1960s. The transition from industrial village to tourist-based economy is underlined by Roger Ridgeway's statement that, at the beginning of the 20th century, "a hundred horses and carts would have been seen taking fluorspar to Grindleford and Hassop stations. Until recently, up to a dozen coach loads of visiting children arrived each day in the village," and as of the 2011 Census the population has remained largely unchanged at 969.
1665 plague outbreak
The history of the plague in the village began in 1665 when a flea-infested bundle of cloth arrived from London for Alexander Hadfield, the local tailor. Within a week, his assistant George Viccars, noticing the bundle was damp, had opened it up. Before long, he was dead and more began dying in the household soon after.Clifford (1989)
As the disease spread, the villagers turned for leadership to their rector, the Reverend William Mompesson, and the ejected Puritan minister Thomas Stanley. They introduced a number of precautions to slow the spread of the illness from May 1666. The measures included the arrangement that families were to bury their own dead and relocation of church services to the natural amphitheatre of Cucklett Delph, allowing villagers to separate themselves and so reducing the risk of infection. Perhaps the best-known decision was to quarantine the entire village to prevent further spread of the disease. Merchants from surrounding villages sent supplies that they would leave on marked rocks; the villagers then made holes there which they would fill with vinegar to disinfect the money left as payment.
The plague ran its course over 14 months and one account states that it killed at least 260 villagers, with only 83 surviving out of a population of 350. That figure has been challenged, with alternative figures of 430 survivors from a population of around 800 being given. The church in Eyam has a record of 273 individuals who were victims of the plague.
Survival among those affected appeared random, as many who remained alive had close contact with those who died but never caught the disease. For example, Elizabeth Hancock was uninfected despite burying six children and her husband in eight days. The graves are known as the Riley graves after the farm where they lived. The unofficial village gravedigger, Marshall Howe, also survived, despite handling many infected bodies.
Plague Sunday Plague Sunday has been celebrated in the village since the plague's bicentenary in 1866. Originally held in mid-August, it now takes place in Cucklett Delph on the last Sunday in August, coinciding with the (much older) Wakes Week and well dressing ceremonies.Wallis (2006).
Legacy Some have questioned the details of the story of Eyam's response to the plague and the wisdom of the actors in it. The reviewer of the poem The Tale of Eyam in the British Medical Journal of 30 November 1889 comments on its poetic phraseology: "The author speaks of the pestilence and 'its hellborn brood'; and again of firebolts from 'heaven's reeking nostrils.' Such phraseology, says the unknown author, "aptly exemplifies the mental attitude of men who lived in the infancy of modern science, when in the plague they saw the angry stroke of offended Deity, and recognised the 'scourge' of God in what we know to be only the scourge of filth.' Shortly afterwards, writing in his A History of Epidemics in Britain (Cambridge University Press, 1891), Charles Creighton, while affirming the account of what happened, questioned the wisdom of the actions taken at the revival of the epidemic in 1666 as mistaken, though well-meaning. Instead, "the villagers of Eyam were sacrificed ... to an idea, and to an idea which we may now say was not scientifically sound", suggesting that they should have fled elsewhere as long as they did not gather together or take "tainted" articles with them.
A 2005 study of Eyam's story as history claims it is no more than a literary construct fabricated long after the actual events. Contemporary reporting was rare and often the result of political or religious bias. From the dawn of the 19th century, the romanticised and sentimental accounts of events at Eyam were "largely produced by poets, writers and local historians – not doctors", as is apparent from the dissenting opinions quoted above. The 1866 bicentenary commemoration, repeated annually for close on a century and a half, is claimed by the author to be the beginning of "an overtly invented tradition" which has spawned a heritage industry to profit the village in the face its declining prosperity and population, and provided instead "a plague tourism infrastructure".
By contrast, the 2000 study led by Dr. Steve O'Brien suggested that a human gene mutation, CCR5-Δ32, known to confer immunity to HIV, may have helped the survivors at Eyam: "the timing is right, the numbers are right" and their descendants had a higher than average percentage of the mutation. In addition the 2016 study by Drs. Didelot and Whittles acknowledged that Eyam was "important because it gives us fantastic data for the plague". They found that human-to-human transmission was far greater than previously thought and that the village's isolation did indeed help to stop the spread of the plague.
Eyam Hypothesis The "Eyam Hypothesis" is a medical theory named after the village's contribution to containing the spread of the plague through self-isolation. It has been proposed in the recent discussion over whether observed isolationary behaviour in sickness among vertebrates is the result of evolution or of altruism and still awaits validation.
Plague literature Poems The Village of Eyam: a poem in four parts by John Holland, Macclesfield, 1821 "Eyam Banks", an anonymously authored lyric that accompanied an account of the plague published in 1823.The Mirror of literature, amusement, and instruction, vol. 1 (I823), p.326 The Desolation of Eyam by William and Mary Howitt, London, 1827 "Cucklet Church", a poem that accompanied a description of Eyam and its history by the prolific Sheffield author Samuel Roberts. The Tale of Eyam, a story of the plague in Derbyshire, and other poems by an OLD BLUE, London, 1888. A Moral Ballad of the Plague of Eyam by Francis McNamara (1884–1946). This was published as an Irish broadside in 1910. In his poem "Lockdown" (2020), written during the COVID-19 pandemic, Simon Armitage draws a parallel at the start with the voluntary quarantine of the inhabitants of Eyam.
Fiction "Riley Grave-Stones: a Derbyshire story", published under a pseudonym in The London Magazine for January – June 1823.Vol. VII, pp.282 – 291 An account of the plague in Eyam and the encounter between the author and a granddaughter of one of the victims, it is prefaced by lines purporting to come from a poem titled "The Plague of Eyam" and also contains the lyric "Eyam Banks". The Brave Men of Eyam – a tale of the great plague year by Edward N. Hoare, SPCK, 1881. God and the Wedding Dress by Marjorie Bowen, Hutchinson, 1938. A Parcel of Patterns by Jill Paton Walsh, a novel for young adults, Puffin Books, 1983. Children of Winter by Berlie Doherty, a fantasy novel for children, published by Methuen, 1985;adapted for television 1994.BBC School Radio The Naming of William Rutherford by Linda Kempton, a fantasy novel for children, published by Heinemann, 1992. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, published by Fourth Estate, 2001.The opening chapters are on Google Books Black Death by M. I. McAllister, children's fiction, Oxford University Press, 2003. Kiss of Death by Malcolm Rose, a thriller for young adults, published by Usborne Publishing, 2006. TSI: The Gabon Virus by Paul McCusker and Walt Larimore, M.D., Christian suspense fiction, published by Howard Books (USA), 2009. Eyam: Plague Village by David Paul, Amberley Publishing, 2012.Details on Google Books The Hemlock Cure by Joanne Burn: Sphere, 2022, Simon and Schuster (US); set at the period of the plague with the main focus on the village women.Fantastic Fiction
Theatre The Brave Men of Eyam: 1665–1666, a radio play by Michael Reynolds, originally broadcast on 30 August 1936, and reprinted by permission of the Radio Times.