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Eyam

Eyam ( /ˈm/ ) is an English village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales that lies within the Peak District National Park. There is evidence of early occupation by Ancient Britons on the surrounding moors and lead was mined in the area by the Romans. A settlement was founded on the present site by Anglo-Saxons, when mining was continued and other industries later developed. However, Eyam's main claim to fame is the story of how the village chose to go into isolation so as to prevent infection spreading after bubonic plague was discovered there in 1665.

In the later 20th century, the village's sources of livelihood largely disappeared. The local economy now relies on the tourist trade, with Eyam being promoted as "the plague village".

Eyam has its own Parish Council with a wide range of powers at community level. At district level, Eyam has representation on Derbyshire Dales District Council and this, in turn, is represented on Derbyshire County Council. At parliamentary level, the village lies within the constituency of Derbyshire Dales.

Lead mining seems to have had a continuous history in the Eyam district since at least the Roman era and there is evidence of habitation from earlier. Stone circles and earth barrows on the moors above the present village have largely been destroyed, although some remain and more are recorded. The most notable site is the Wet Withens stone circle on Eyam Moor. Coins bearing the names of many emperors provide evidence of Roman lead-mining locally. However, the village's name derives from Old English and is first recorded in the Domesday Book as Aium. It is a dative form of the noun ēġ ('an island') and probably refers to a patch of cultivable land amidst the moors, or else to the settlement's situation between two brooks.

In the churchyard is an Anglo-Saxon cross in Mercian style dated to the 8th century, moved there from its original location beside a moorland cart track. Grade I listed and a Scheduled Monument, it is covered in complex carvings and is almost complete, but for a missing section of the shaft.

The present parish church of St. Lawrence dates from the 14th century, but evidence of an earlier church there can be found in the Saxon font, a Norman window at the west end of the north aisle, and Norman pillars that are thought to rest on Saxon foundations. There have been alterations since the Middle Ages, including a large sundial dated 1775 mounted on a wall outside. Some of the rectors at the church have had contentious histories, none less than the fanatically Royalist Sherland Adams who, it was accused, "gave tythe of lead ore to the King against the Parliament", and as a consequence was removed from the living and imprisoned.

The lead mining tithe was due to the rectors by ancient custom. They received one penny for every 'dish' of ore and twopence farthing for every load of hillock-stuff. Owing to the working of a newly discovered rich vein during the 18th century, the Eyam living was a valuable one. Mining continued into the 19th century, after which better sources were discovered and a change-over was made to the working and treatment of fluorspar as a slagging agent in smelting. The last to close was the Ladywash Mine, which was operative between 1948 and 1979. Within a 3-mile radius of the village there are 439 known mines (some running beneath the village itself), drained by 49 drainage levels ('soughs').

According to the 1841 Census for Eyam, there were 954 inhabitants living in the parish, chiefly employed in agriculture, lead mining, and cotton and silk weaving. By the 1881 Census, most men either worked as lead miners or in the manufacture of boots and shoes, a trade that only ended in the 1960s. The transition from industrial village to tourist-based economy is underlined by Roger Ridgeway's statement that, at the beginning of the 20th century, "a hundred horses and carts would have been seen taking fluorspar to Grindleford and Hassop stations. Until recently, up to a dozen coach loads of visiting children arrived each day in the village," and as of the 2011 Census the population has remained largely unchanged at 969.

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