Eyam

I mentioned Eyam a few days ago, and it's time I told the story for those of you who don't know.

In 1666, Plague was sweeping through London but the rest of the country steadily ticked over. In the Derbyshire village of Eyam, people continued to work and plan and go to church, and take their produce to Bakewell market every week. The tailor still had plenty of work to do, and ordered some cloth from London.

Soon afterwards, the first symptoms of plague appeared. It seems that the cloth was infested with plague carrying fleas. In the first days of panic people fled the village, or sent their children away, hoping that the disease would be over soon. But the plague was virulent. The vicar, William Mompesson, and other community leaders held a meeting for all the villagers in the church. William Mompesson and his wife Catherine had already sent their two children to safety, but perhaps now they had mixed feelings about that. They had realised the danger of undiagnosed plague carriers leaving the village and spreading the virus through the Midlands and the North.

The people of Eyam made a pact. They would seal off the village. Nobody would come in, nobody would leave. They sent word to surrounding village, and arranged that any buying and selling would be done through messages, and money would be left at fixed points in water. Vinegar was left at collection points for disinfection.

It's many years since I wrote 'Black Death' for OUP, and I'm not as sharp on the facts as I was then. The church was closed, because they understood that assembling a lot of people indoors would spread the virus, so church services were held in the open. Whole families died. William Mompesson and his wife Catherine visited, nursed, and cared for the sick, and came to the conclusion that they must be immune to the plague. Eyam stood fast. Nobody left, nobody came in.

After about year, the plague had run its course. In August, William and Catherine Mompesson agreed that the worst was over and the village could soon be declared clean. The last plague victim was buried at the end of August.

If you go to Eyam now you can still see the Plague Cottages, the church where William Mompesson recorded the numbers of the dead, and the places where money was left to be collected. And in the churchyard you can see the tomb of the last person in Eyam to die of the plague. It is the grave of Catherine Mompesson. If you're there at the end of August, you will see that they still bring her flowers.