‘The Mighty Woe’ – separating fact from fiction centuries later

In the last of his series on the Eyam plague, Barry M Marsden takes a close look at the evidence of this remarkable chapter in the county’s history.

THE PEAKLAND VILLAGE OF EYAM is the focal point of Europe’s plague heritage, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to the Derbyshire settlement, attracted by stories of its catastrophic visitation and the heroic response it elicited – an exemplary narrative of a selfless community guided by strong and positive leadership, yet a narrative largely constructed of legends and hearsay, produced by poets, writers and local historians, established no earlier than the end of the 18th century and founded, manipulated and reshaped to fit changing historical and literary perspectives…