Distance: 6.1 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: hard

Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk from Bakewell across part of the central Peak District to Eyam Derbyshire’s famous plague village, site of the British Isles final outbreak of bubonic plague in 1665-66.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

A Peak District Plague Village

Eyam in the central part of the Peak District is one of those places in Derbyshire, like Crich, with a name that is pronounced quite differently from how it is spelt. Eem rather than E-yam.

This is far from its only claim to fame. With just under 1,000 inhabitants it is one of the larger Peak District villages, as well as being one of the highest, situated 235 metres above sea level. Although this elevation pales in comparison with Flash the Peak District (and Britain’s) highest settlement out in the Staffordshire Moorlands and 471 metres above sea level. Eyam is also notable for being situated more or less right at the point where the White Peak’s limestone dales give way to the Dark Peak’s millstone grit plateaus and uplands.

However, Eyam is known primarily for a harrowing incident in the mid-17th Century when it was the site of Britain’s final outbreak of bubonic plague. The villager’s remarkable response to this calamity has been extensively memorialised, and some have argued mythologised, ever since.

Accounts of Eyam in 1665 tend to stress the village’s remoteness and isolation. However, this is only partially true, in the 17th Century just like now the village was situated close to major roads (now the A623 which converges with the A6 just south of Chapel-en-le-Frith, as well as the A625 and A621 which run south from Sheffield, then it was a key series of packhorse roads traversing the Peak District north to south and east to west.). It was also a major mining centre, nearly as important in the Peak District’s lead and other metals and mineral mining economy as Wirksworth in the south and Castleton in the north, where the industry was regulated from. Eyam remained a mining town until well into the 20th Century with the last fluorspar mine only closing in 1979. 

Indeed some reckon that the population of Eyam was as high as 800 in 1665, though others have argued it was as low as 350, with yet more suggesting a population somewhere in the middle of that range. Either way, Eyam in the 1660s was not a small isolated community rather it was an affluent settlement perhaps akin to a small town, composed of miners, merchants, artisans and farmers and agricultural workers. It was far from self-sufficient in the way that we tend to imagine peasant societies being, rather it was heavily networked and interdependent with neighbouring villages like Stoney Middleton and Foolow, and trading extensively with larger places far beyond the Peak District.

This interconnectedness is attested to by the drama around Eyam’s rectorate in the years immediately prior to the plague’s visitation. During the upheavals of the Civil War period in the 1640s and 1650s Eyam’s Purtian minded, Calvinist population had taken advantage of the relative religious freedom unleashed by the challenge to the monarchy by electing a village priest whose sympathies matched their own. Their chosen priest was a man from Duckmanton in north east Derbyshire called Thomas Stanley. By the 1660s he was in the 50s and had had a long career as a village priest across north Derbyshire and south Yorkshire. However, he was forced to resign his position at Eyam shortly after the restoration, because he refused to use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in the services he led. Thomas Stanley was replaced by William Mompesson, a man at least a generation younger, just 25 when appointed rector in 1664, who was a staunch Anglican that had grown up quite far from Eyam just outside York, and the villagers were not happy.

It was into this unhappy mixture in August 1665 that Eyam tailor Alexander Hadfield imported a bundle of fabric from London into the village. London at the time was in the grip of the Great Plague, a major outbreak of the disease which killed at least a quarter of the capital’s population. He had a temp he had hired, George Viccars opened up the bundle of fabric to dry it out. Who knows, maybe it consisted of new cloth, or perhaps it was second hand, previously worn by plague victims perhaps? Either way, it is believed that during the process of drying the cloth at least one flea carrying the plague bacteria which survived the journey north from London, bit George Viccars. He rapidly fell ill and died a few days later. 

The house in which he was lodging with Alexander Hadfield and his family still stands and is marked with a plaque. It is significant because George Viccars sudden illness and its spread to the wider Hadfield household proved to be ground zero for Eyam’s bubonic plague epidemic. 

When it became apparent that the plague had reached the village, panic understandably set in. Generally speaking bubonic plague has a fatality rate of between thirty and sixty percent amongst those who fall sick with it, and it is a deeply, deeply unpleasant illness even for those who do not die. So understandably those who had the option to flee Eyam began looking to do so. An action which may well have saved their lives, but given that the illness had firmly taken root in the village, would probably have served to spread the deadly illness to other communities where the refugees pitched up.

William Mompesson, the youthful, newly arrived, outsider, unpopular new village priest decided that this was not acceptable. In the story that has come down to us he headed out to the edge of the village, to the property where his predecessor, the debarred Thomas Stanley, was living, having returned to the village in a state of grudging-retirement following the death of his wife. Mompesson persuaded Stanley to join him in preaching to the villagers that they should stay put, endure the plague’s ravage through their community as best they could, and avoid spreading the plague to the outside world.

And so, persuaded by the two priests the villagers of Eyam despite the serious risks to their lives resolved to stay put so as to avoid spreading the pestilence. The Duke of Devonshire, northern Derbyshire’s major landowner, agreed to provide supplies to the village. These were left on “plague stones” many of which exist to this day stationed around the villages. The money for goods which were to be paid for was left in holes in the stones filled with vinegar which served as a disinfectant. 

In this way supplies were maintained to Eyam throughout the fourteen month period that the villagers were in quarantine. During that time 273 villagers are believed to have perished amounting to between a third and two thirds of the pre-plague population. This included at least one family which perished in its entirety and numerous others where only a single family member survived. Amongst the victims were William Mempesson’s wife who died within twelve hours of first showing symptoms. Social distancing protocols within the village encouraged families to tend to their own dead burying them in the ground they owned around their houses. Several of these makeshift domestic graveyards remain to this day and can be seen in the older parts of the village.

Finally on the 1st November 1666 Abraham Morten – a farm labourer in his mid-20s – died, becoming the final victim of a mass outbreak of the bubonic plague in the British isles. When no more deaths followed Morten’s tragic end the quarantine of Eyam was lifted. Both William Mompesson and William Stanley survived the plague as probably at least half of Eyam’s population in the summer of 1665. No doubt those who had lived were severely affected by what they had experienced in the quarantine village. William Stanley lived a further five years, dying aged around 60 in 1670 still living in Eyam where his gravestone can be found in the village churchyard. William Mompesson eventually left Eyam, moving further east and eventually rising to become the prededentary (chief operations officer) of Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire before dying in 1709, his seventieth year. By all accounts Eyam rapidly recovered from the plague, new residents drawn in by the mining industry and its felicitous location along key trade routes. Many of the fine old buildings in the village centre including Eyam Hall were built in the decades immediately after the plague.  

Today tourists and parties of school children flock to Eyam to encounter the story and visit the many historic sites associated with the plague. The village is good at memorialising its past, both the story of the plague, and other aspects of its rich long history. Since the bicentenary of the Eyam plague year in 1866 an annual Plague Sunday celebration has taken place. These days it occurs near the time of year when the plague began on the final Sunday of August, or the first Sunday of September, and coincides with Eyam’s annual well dressing.

Numerous books, plays and other cultural artefacts have been inspired by the story of Eyam’s plague quarantine and the events which transpired during it. However, there are those who question the veracity of the tale. They argue that the story of Eyam’s quarantine from the plague is largely a 19th Century myth invented around the time of the bicentenary and sustained by the village’s tourism industry. In some ways the story of Eyam’s response to the plague does seem too good to be true. It would be unsurprising if aspects of it were embellished or even entirely invented. It is known that William Mompesson himself opted to send his young children from the village so as to spare them the plague so perhaps the stay in place quarantine was not quite so tight or as extensively observed as the traditional story suggests. Perhaps if more people fled from Eyam during the plague year than is commonly assumed that is why the village recovered pretty strongly afterwards as they returned?

However, the parish registers detailing the 273 deaths from the bubonic plague are real, as are the tragic little family graveyards, now well weathered, which dot the older parts of the village. Likewise Eyam thankfully was the last bubonic plague epidemic in the British Isles which suggests that for whatever reason the plague did not spread beyond the village’s bounds and its unfortunate inhabitants both the living and the dead.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

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This walk to the Derbyshire Peak District’s famous “plague village” of Eyam (pronounced Eem) starts from Bakewell town centre near where the many buses that run to, or through Bakewell stop.

From the roundabout that the Rutland Arms Hotel sits on, take the A6’s exit off to the right, heading north west towards Buxton and Greater Manchester.

Walk alongside the A6 heading out of town for quite some distance.

Presently as you near the edge of Buxton approaching the industrial estate where the Thornbridge Brewery is based, you come to a footpath on your right.

Turn right and head down this path. Soon you come to a grand limestone footbridge across the River Wye which you cross.

On the far side of the River Wye, right on the edge of Bakewell you come to a junction. Straight ahead of you there is an old two storey limestone building. Walk towards this building then turn left.

Beyond the building follow a path on the right running uphill into woodland.

Keep on up the path through the trees.

Soon on your right there is a gate leading out of the trees onto an open hillside above Bakewell.

Through the gate you come to an old drovers road or packhorse route running through upland countryside. You follow it walking straight ahead for quite some distance.

Presently you reach the brow of the hill, and the path begins to descend steeply.

At the bottom of the hill you reach a gate leading onto the Monsal Trail. The Monsal Trail is a cycle path, though plenty of walkers also use it, which uses most of the disused section of railway line between Matlock in the south east and Buxton in the north west which was once the Midland Railway’s mainline between London and Manchester across the White Peak.

Cross the Monsal Trail and walk through a gate into a meadow on the far side.

Once in the meadow there is a clear path off to the left towards the busy A6020 road.

Upon reaching the road side, cross straight over following a footpath waymarker out into a field.

When I walked the route in early September 2023 the field was planted with sweetcorn. There is a clear path running through it. Whether the field is planted or not, follow this path, and when you get the opportunity turn right and head for an old stone wall separating the field from some woodland.

In the far right corner of the very large field, partway along the wall, there is a stile across a stone wall.

Cross this stile and follow the footpath keeping close to the wall around the edge of another field. Climbing two further stiles as you go.

Presently on your right there is a driveway paved with crushed limestone gravel. Upon reaching this driveway turn left and walk along the driveway.

Soon you reach a gate which leads out beside a road.

Upon reaching the side of the road turn left and then almost immediately right along a quiet country lane.

This lane leads to the little village of Rowland. Upon reaching the village keep on walking along the road straight through it.

Just after the last house in Rowland the road narrows and you pass a small Severn Trent reservoir on top of a small hill to your right.

A little way beyond Rowland and the reservoir you come to a bridleway running steeply uphill to your left.

Turn left and walk up the bridleway following it for quite some distance.

Presently you reach the top of the hill. From here there are great views across the Peak District. There is a deep limestone quarry, possibly recently worked out, in front of you fenced off.

There is a wide unpaved road in front of the quarry. Turn right here and walk along the road past a stand of trees.

Soon off the left there is a gate waymarked as a footpath.

On the other side of the gate turn right heading downhill towards another stand of trees.

There is a gateway flanked by a couple of stiles, though the gate was open on the day that I walked the route, which you pass through still heading downhill.

Just beyond the gate there is a footpath across grassland leading steadily downhill off to the right. Turn and follow this path.

Soon you come to a gate which you pass through. It leads you down into the deep Coombs Dale.

Keep on following the path downhill, steadily working your way down to the bottom of the dale. Take care as the path is pretty narrow and the sides of the dale are very steep. You pass through another gate partway down.

Presently you approach the bottom of the dale and some woodland. Walk into the trees and join a wider path. Here, turn left, passing through a gate.

Walk along the path a little further crossing a small wooden plank bridge to reach a path surfaced with asphalt.

Upon reaching this path at the bottom of Coombs Dale turn right, keep walking along the path for some distance.

Off to the left as the dale begins to become shallower you come to a footpath leading through a stand of trees. Here there is a wooden stile which you cross.

On the far side of the stile turn right and follow a path ascending quite steeply up the side of the dale. Follow the path and keep on it as it turns to the left. In the distance to the right there are good views of the edges rising up above the Derwent valley looming over the villages of Curbar and Froggatt.

At the top you come to a wooden gate which leads out in a pasture. Once in the pasture walk a short distance, then off to the left there is a wooden gate waymarked as a footpath.

Head through the gate then turn right walking down a green lane which is actually part of someone’s garden. There is a metal gate partway down.

Soon you come to a wooden gate which you pass through. This leads out onto a driveway, where you turn right. Follow the driveway for some distance approaching the edge of Stoney Middleton. Which lies close to its neighbour of Eyam, is bisected by the busy A623 road and also has a long history of mining and quarrying.

Entering the village you reach a public road, soon coming to a junction. Here turn right and begin walking downhill into the village.

On your left, next to Stoney Middleton’s tiny primary school, there is a flight of steep steps.

Turn left down this steps which lead you to the centre of the village beside the A623. Once beside the A623 you can see the deep rocky Middleton Dale, home of Lover’s Leap and Curry Cottage a smart, very traditional curry house, the only one in Europe I am aware of which is partially situated in a cave. The other outstanding eating establishment in Stoney Middleton is the Toll Bar fish n’ chip shop, a tiny but rightly popular fish bar nearly 100 years old, situated in an old turnpike toll house.

Passing the Toll Bar fish n’ chip shop, turn right and begin walking uphill into the other half of the village. Soon the road swings around sharply to the left running towards the edge of the village.

On the western fringes of Stoney Middleton the road turns sharply once more this time to the right.

Here turn right and follow the road walking partway up a dale towards the very edge of Stoney Middleton.

Upon reaching a gate above a farm, walk through the gate and onto a bridleway running steadily uphill towards Eyam.

Keep on walking uphill for quite some distance. The track gets steadily less surfaced and narrower as you approach Eyam.

Soon you see the edge of Eyam above you and shortly after that you reach the edge of the village.

At the first houses in Eyam turn right and walk down a lane lined with houses.

After some distance you reach the village’s main square. The historic village greens, church and manor house are a little way off to the right as is the village’s museum. Though the Eyam’s points of historical interest are all around you.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Eyam is reasonably well served by buses. At the time of writing in September 2023 the 257 bus provided a regular series into the evening between Sheffield and Bakewell via Eyam. The 65 bus also ran to Sheffield as well as Tideswell, with the 66 providing a single service each evening to Chesterfield. Eyam does not have a railway station, however, the Hope Valley Line railway stations at Grindleford and Hathersage are not far away and reachable one foot with between an hour, and hour and half’s walking, a little bit longer if you choose a more scenic route to the train.