History
Lessons from the Past
Eyam — The original village of the damned
There’s a mining small village, nestled away in the Derbyshire Dales near Sheffield & Manchester, England, that most people have never heard of.
Eyam (pronounced Eem) is infamous for heartbreaking reasons. Eyam’s inhabitants gave their lives to save countless others during the Great Plague of 1665 and 1666. And it is the original village of the damned.
A tale as old as time
The story of Eyam is preserved and retold in history books and is one we can all relate to & learn from as it bears striking similarities to our current situation. In 1665, the entire village of Eyam came together, united in their self-sacrifice, knowing their chances of survival were bleak.
London was being ravaged by a ‘Black Death’ aka the bubonic plague. It was a deadly bacillus carried by fleas transported by rats. The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people-roughly 15 percent of London’s population at that time. No one was safe as much like today’s Coronavirus, it seemed like anyone could succumb.
It all began one fateful day
The unfortunate chain of events started when a tailor named Alexander Hadfield, received a bale of cloth from…