The bucolic town of Eyam is nestled in the gently rolling hills of the Derbyshire dales. With its rambling roses and stone cottages, there isn’t much to differentiate its quaintness from other small towns in the area—except that Eyam has a tragic tale to tell.
In 1664 the deadly plague known as the Black Death, or Bubonic Plague, had returned once again to bedevil. It was to be the last major outbreak of the disease in England, but as it went on its way, it took 100,000 Londoners with it: one quarter of the city’s population at the time.
For the most part the disease was confined to the nations’ capital and surrounding areas, but in September of 1665 it reached the unsuspecting town of Eyam. It arrived in the form of damp, flea infested cloth sent from London. Once it arrived, George Vicars, a poor unsuspecting tailor’s assistant, hung the cloth in front of the fire to dry out. Within the week he was dead.
When the disease spread swiftly through the village’s inhabitants, they made the heroic decision to quarantine themselves in order to contain the spread. A perimeter of boundary stones were laid out which the villagers agreed not to cross. In the stones they bore holes which would hold vinegar, into which they put money for people who brought food and supplies. The Earl of Devonshire, of nearby Chatsworth House, also donated food and medical supplies.
The plague raged through the unusually hot summer of 1666 and into November, taking the lives of a good 260 villagers, leaving only 80 behind. William Mompesson, who was largely responsible for getting the villagers to quarantine, buried his own wife, Catherine, in August when the plague hit its peak of five to six victims a day. Elizabeth Hancock buried her husband and six children in an eight-day period while miraculously surviving herself. The graves remain today.
Three-hundred-and-fifty years later, a remembrance service is still held every Plague Sunday (the last Sunday in August) and a wreath is placed on the tomb of Catherine Mompesson.
In her debut novel, Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks writes a fictional account of the plague in Eyam. It’s a wonderful re-creation of what life must have been like at such a horrendous time, as seen through the eyes of Anna Frith, a housemaid.
Having recently lost her husband to a mining accident, Anna takes in George Vicars—the tailor—unwittingly bringing the doomed cloth into her home. As she experiences her own losses, she struggles to help those around her as disease and death start to pull her community apart. Over time, grief and superstition begin to push the boundaries of faith, sparking a train of tragic events outside of the disease itself.
The book is graceful and lyrical in its writing and the author does an excellent job in bringing to life the stress and high emotions that must surely have taken hold within the village, highlighting both the best and worst of human frailties. It does however come with a caveat: the last chapters take a decidedly odd turn and so, for me, the ending falls apart. If you can embrace the elegance and poignancy of the story as a whole, as I chose to, then it is an enjoyable read unspoiled by the ending (ok, maybe spoiled a little).
