It is 350 years since the plague of Eyam. In a two-part series, Barry M Marsden takes a fresh look at this remarkable episode in the county’s history.
IN 1665, EYAM must have resembled most 17th century English villages, a quiet backwater undisturbed by political and social upheavals and tragic disasters in far-off London. Its streets would be hard-packed dirt tracks, firm enough in summer but masses of churned-up mud in winter; the roadsides would doubtless be dumping grounds for all manner of dirt and refuse, whilst the cottages would be thatched-roofed and timber-framed, picturesque enough from the exterior but dark and insanitary within…