Eyam

November 11 2015

EYAM, STOKE FORD, RING CAIRN AT STANAGE, BRETTON CLOUGH, BARREL INN AT BRETTON, THE BULL’S HEAD AT FOOLOW, EYAM HALL , PLAGUE COTTAGE AND THE MINERS ARMS AT EYAM

Distance: 7-8 miles.

Difficulty: Easy.

Weather: Dry, mainly cloudy but clear visibility.

Walkers: Peter Beal, Ron Buck, Colin Davison, Mark Gibby, Alan Hart, John Jones and Jock Rooney with Tips.

Apologies: Tom Cunliffe (domestic duties?), George Dearsley (in Turkey), Lawrie Fairman (cruising), Julian Ross (drinking) and George Whaites (dental appointment).

Leaders: Beal and Davison. Diarist: Hart.

Starting point: Car park of The Miners Arms, Eyam, Derbyshire.

Starting time: 10.02am. Finishing time: 2.13pm.

Can we start with an apology for the wording of an apology two weeks ago ? When we told debutant diarist John Jones that Peter Beal would not be present because he was visiting Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales, something was lost in the translation.

We are aware that there is a distinction between the written word and oral intercourse, which might explain this unfortunate slur on the only member of our group who is a Member of the British Empire. There is no evidence whatsoever that Peter is familiar with any ladies of easy virtue so we apologise unreservedly for an honest mistake.

The mild autumn weather continued beyond Bonfire Night and any cloud cover was so high that it failed to obscure the stunning views across The Hope Valley. Some of our group – a Magnificent Seven incidentally – were unfamiliar with the historic background of the medieval village of Eyam at the time when “The Black Death” was sweeping across Europe.

So with further apologies to those who know the ancient story, here is a brief resume of its place in folklore.

Bubonic plague, or The Black Death as it was called, swept across the Channel to England in 1655 and struck first in the ports around London. It was a deadly virus borne by fleas on rats. An infected bundle of cloth was brought into an Eyam cottage for tailor George Vicars.

He was the first victim in the village on September 7. Soon the occupants of neighbouring cottages showed similar symptoms and the village rector, The Rev William Mompesson, called a meeting. Instead of fleeing their homes, and risking the spread of the disease to neighbouring villages, the inhabitants of Eyam agreed to stay in isolation.

Statistics vary on precisely how many of them were killed. One report claimed 260 died and 83 survived. Another estimated there were 430 survivors from 800 villagers. Fatalities appeared to be inexplicably random. Elizabeth Hancock, for instance, was uninfected yet she buried her husband and six children in eight days. 

We were to pass many plaques relating to this pandemic which claimed millions of lives throughout the world – so many that your diarist was moved to re-name it “the plaque village.” There is even a nursery rhyme based on the plague on the primary school  gates. “Ring a ring a roses, a pocket full of posies, Atishoo Atishoo, all fall down.” It is hard to credit that 17th Century kids could indulge in such black, gallows humour.

After passing the Miners Arms on our left and turning up Church Street on our right we passed these gates on our right prior to turning right into the graveyard of Eyam Parish Church, taking a path which passed the church itself on our left. We exited by a kissing gate (8mins) and headed uphill over a wooden stile. In a field on our right were two alpacas, normally natives of Peru.

We turned left at a wooden public footpath sign indicating Mompessons Well (13mins). A further climb took us to a lane where a right turn would have led us to the well. Instead we turned left and immediately right at a wooden public footpath sign by a kissing gate marked with a yellow arrow (15mins).

The climb continued and we went through a wooden gate into a field (20mins). Three more wooden gates brought us to a lane where we turned left for 20 yards then went right at a wooden public footpath sign via a stone step stile (24mins). Two similar stiles took us across a stony track (33mins) and we followed a wooden public footpath sign for Stoke Ford.

Our group reached what Peter’s map described as Ring Cairn at Stanage (40mins). From the cairn of stones we took a beaten path downhill with the village of Grindleford in the middle distance diagonally right. We crossed a stone step stile by the side of a metal gate (50mins) and crossed a similar stile beside a patched-up metal gate, stopping on the far side for pies and port (58mins).

Resuming our journey, we followed the path downhill, but with a stream in sight a few yards below us we swung left (68mins). This took us through a wooden kissing gate on Bretton Clough (76mins). We crossed a wooden stile and a stream (90mins) and reached a pebbled lane (98mins) where we turned right.

This brought us to Bretton Court on our right and The Barrel Inn at Bretton on our left (91mins). The car park opposite had spectacular views over Hucklow Edge and the valley below where there is a division between the gritstone “Dark Peak “ and the limestone “White Peak.”

The Barrel Inn was built in 1597 as a farmhouse, becoming a public house in 1753. Among its customers were the traders with their packhorses and the miners who toiled on the lead vein running from the Ladywash Mine to Tideslow. The lead had been harvested since Roman times with the value of its spoil, fluorspar, being recognised in the 20th Century.

We turned right at the pub, in the direction of Eyam (94mins) before swinging left downhill to enter the village of Foolow (111mins). At the crossroads we turned left passing St Hugh’s Church, a converted smithy which held its first service in 1888. Further on the left we entered The Bull’s Head (115mins). Here, fittingly, we enjoyed pints of Intrepid Explorer at £3-50 in a warm, cosy atmosphere.

As we were leaving, a coach-load of confused, elderly people arrived but we looked in vain for members of the SOB team.

From the pub we turned left towards Eyam, turning right at a wooden public footpath sign marked with a yellow arrow (118mins) to enter a field full of cows and calves which looked upon Tips with great mistrust. A wooden gate took us into the next field (119mins) and then a series of gates and gap stiles took us all the way back to Eyam. En route we stopped at a sheltered depression in a field for lunch (146mins).

The path took us to the end of New Close (163mins), where we turned right and passed Eyam Hall on our left with a set of stocks on the right. We then passed the cottages on the left where the plague had wreaked its earliest damage. In Rose Cottage nine members of the Thorpe family died in six weeks, and Plague Cottage was where first victim George Vicars had lived. (It was not named Plague Cottage at the time: that would have been too much of a coincidence)

After passing Eyam Parish Church on our left (170mins) we retraced our footsteps back to The Miners Arms (173mins).

Photos by John Jones

Next week’s walk will start from Barber Booth car park, near Edale, Derbyshire, at 9.45am. The aim will be to reach The Nag’s Head at Edale around 12.30pm and return to the cars at about 2.15pm. The plan then is to drive to The Soldier Dick at Furness Vale, around 2.30pm in the hope that some of the SOB team might be waiting there.

Happy wandering !