Corona-virus, Self Isolation/Quarantine and Mompesson's Well; Eyam

I want to share something safe and readable with you, through these unprecedented and challenging times.

For me, 2020 so far has been a difficult year, probably worse than 2015 when the year started off with my younger brother passing away, then on a couple of weeks later, someone ran a red light taking me with them and smashing my leg, resulting in over two years of surgery to stabilise things, and still ongoing issues today!

With all the inclement weather we've all endured, it has been hard for me to get out because of my leg, which as many will know, has had to be reconstructed, but very close to amputation, and I still have lots of skin problems, so getting out in the wet is not a viable option. So as a result, this year so far, I've not made many ventures outdoors.

Now with the necessary lock-down, I'm yet still, and as I type, on this rare lovely sunny day, unable to get out and enjoy sitting in a hide, or wandering one of the local National Trusts.

However, this is not a sympathy call, more an opportunity to share some history of folk who endured more challenging times, without the support we have today. Difficult the current situation is for us all, I'd like to share a historical story, with a very large element of fact behind it, about a village in the Peak District called Eyam.

Incidentally, my blogs from my walking days are just like my photos, are there as memories for me, and for anyone else who wants to peruse to read/view and enjoy by anyone else.

Eyam; a plague village and a walk on Eyam Moor

Most of us know: the Bubonic Plague started life in London, during the summer of 1665. However, what a lot of people don’t realise, this was not the only occurrence. In fact, there were quite a few occurrences of the plague in London spanning over a century! 

However, this particular outbreak is the one to which my visit to Eyam in the Peak District National Park relates to.

For it was here, in Eyam often known as the Plague Village, where under the direction of the Reverend William Mompesson, of St Lawrence Church, Eyam, that the village isolated itself from the rest of the world to prevent the spread of the plague.

The bubonic plague took Eyam’s first victim, tailors assistant one George Vicars on 7th September 1665 and its last victim, Abraham Morten on 1st November 1666. In that period of fourteen months, some 260 people died within the village!

I will apologise in advance. Eyam is so full of history; I’ve not covered a lot, but seem to have written a lot. I hope you find what I’ve written as fascinating as I have when undertaking my research before going live with this blog.

I won’t go in to any great detail about the plague days, for there will be too much to cover, but I can strongly recommend reading up on how the village of Eyam coped with the plague.

The story is; a chest of clothing arrives at the house where George Vicars was staying with clothes from London. Upon opening it, he observed an obnoxious odour, which found the clothes to be damp.

This in itself was not the cause of the bubonic plague, but what the clothes harboured was, fleas!

It was the flea that feasted on the blood of the black rat found its way to feast on human in the absence of its host, the black rat

To help contain the bubonic plague, Rev’d William Mompesson set about a plan to control the plague. That was; to basically quarantine the village by isolating itself from the rest of the country, to close the church to reduce the spread of the plague with in the village and the final but probably the least pleasant, was to bury their own family members on their own land!

Could you imagine having to bury your family members, with plague ravaged bodies, at the bottom of your garden?

The church during those days held a very prominent place in everyone’s lives, so to close the church would be cutting off a lifeline for the villagers. So Rev’d William Mompesson arranged an alternative location, The Delf, located to the south west of Eyam, between the village and Middleton Dale.

St Lawrence Church, Eyam

To briefly continue, as part of this quarantine, the village needed to bring certain items in and also send certain items out, to survive. This had to be done without spreading the plague and this is where Mompesson's Well came in to its own. Here, it provided a drop off and pick up point for Eyam, allowing the exchange of goods without any contact from the villagers to the outside world.

Coins were soaked in vinegar to disinfect them in a bid to stop the spread of the plague….

Mompesson's Well, Eyam

This story was covered in a play, The Roses Of Eyam, which was televised on BB2 in 1973, which I recall watching as a child.

I would love to see that play again……

Now, some of you may be thinking about the nursery rhythm “Ring a Ring a Roses” for which there are a few variations of.

There is no confirmed relationship between the bubonic plague and the nursery rhythm, but I often wonder?

For these little lines of verse are often born out of some even, be it local or wider spread….

However, I’ve picked this one;

“A ring, a ring o' roses,
A pocket full o' posies-
Atishoo atishoo we all fall down. “

My thoughts, the ring of roses, the ringed scab as a result of the flea bite,

“Atishoo atishoo”, the sneezing associated with the bubonic plague and finally, “We all fall down”, the final curtain.

After a lot of searching on the web, I didn’t manage to find a satisfactory explanation to the line “A pocket full of posies-“

Especially with all the variants of the nursery rhythm that are around….

One final thing before I move on to the walk, Eyam Well Dressings, as with many Peak District villages has a dresses three wells and blesses them, which is held at on the last Saturday of August each year.

If you haven’t read my write up on Tissington Well Dressing, might want read Tissington Well Dressing, an ancient custom, today, which will give you an insight in to what Well Dressings are about.

I have never visited Eyam before, but it’s been a long time on my list of places to visit. As a result of my initial research I kept the walk very short, so I could spend some time in the village of Eyam.

Plague Doctor with Beak Mask (image Eyam Plague Museum)

Addendum.

Very few plague victims were buried in the church graveyard. It was deemed best to bury those who passed away on your own land, hence why there are few plague victim graves in the churchyard.