Eyam, Derbyshire - mural, St. Lawrence's Parish Church - RP

Postcard ?
• Picture / Image: The mural, St. Lawrence's Parish Church  
• Publisher:  none given
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
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• Notes / condition:  photographic card with description on reverse - postcard size, possibly intended for use as a postcard

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Eyam /'i?m/ (Anglian At the islands^[2]) is a village in Derbyshire, England. The village is best known for being the ""plague village"" that chose to isolate itself when the plague was discovered there in August 1665, rather than let the infection spread. The village was founded and named by Anglo-Saxons, although lead had been mined in the area by the Romans.^[3]

The plague had been brought to the village in a flea-infested bundle of cloth that was delivered to tailor George Viccars from London.^[4]

Within a week he was dead and was buried on 7 September 1665.^[5] After the initial deaths, the townspeople turned to their rector, the Reverend William Mompesson, and the Puritan Minister Thomas Stanley. They introduced a number of precautions to slow the spread of the illness from May 1666. These included the arrangement that families were to bury their own dead and the relocation of church services from the parish church of St. Lawrence to Cucklett Delph to allow villagers to separate themselves, reducing the risk of infection. Perhaps the best-known decision was to quarantine the entire village to prevent further spread of the disease. The plague raged in the village for 14 months and it is stated that it killed at least 260 villagers with only 83 villagers surviving out of a population of 350.^[5] This figure has been challenged on a number of occasions with alternative figures of 430 survivors from a population of around 800 being given.^[5] The church in Eyam has a record of 273 individuals who were victims of the plague. ^[6]

When the first outsiders visited Eyam a year later, they found that fewer than a quarter of the village had survived the plague. Survival appeared random, as many plague survivors had close contact with the bacterium but never caught the disease. For example, Elizabeth Hancock never became ill despite burying six children and her husband in eight days (the graves are known as the Riley graves).^[4] The unofficial village gravedigger Marshall Howe also survived, despite handling many infected bodies, as he had earlier survived catching the disease.^[5]

Today Eyam has various plague-related places of interest such as the Coolstone, a stone in which money, usually soaked in vinegar, which was believed to kill the infection, was placed in exchange for food and medicine, and the Riley graves as mentioned above. The only pub to be found in the village is the Miner's Arms. Opposite the church is the Mechanics' Institute, used as the village hall meeting rooms. The Mechanics' Institute was established in Eyam in 1824,^[7] with a library paid for by subscription, which then contained 766 volumes. There were 30 members recorded in 1857, paying 3d. (the equivalent of 1p) per month.^[8] Up the main street is the Jacobean house Eyam Hall, built just after the plague. The green opposite has an ancient set of village stocks reputedly used to punish the locals for minor crimes. There is also a Youth Hostel in the village.

Eyam Museum opened in 1994, including exhibits on local history in general and the 1665 Plague in particular.

Eyam Hall is currently managed by the National Trust and opened to the public in March 2013.

type=real photographic (rp)

theme=topographical: british

sub-theme=england

county/ country=derbyshire

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted