Eyam

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EYAM - Description from Pigot's 1835 Directory

EYAM is a township, in the parish of its name, in the same hundred as Stoney Middleton, about one mile N.N.W. from that town, fire E. by N. from Tideswell, and twelve W. by N. from Chesterfield. The neighbourhood of this village derived, at one period, a considerable degree of prosperity from the lead mines at Foolow, a small village one mile west of this place; but for some years past these works have declined, and with them the population of the neighbourhood.

Nothing of early note is attached to the village, except its having been visited by that dreadful pestilence, the plague, in 1666; and by which it was nearly depopulated. The infection was communicated by some cast off clothes being sent from London to a person residing at this place. The church is a very ancient building, dedicated to St. Helen: the living is a rectory, in the gift of the Duke of Devonshire and two others, alternately; the present incumbent is the Rev. E. B. Bagshawe. In the church-yard is a very ancient stone cross, supposed to be of Roman origin. Ann Seward, poetess and novelist, was a native of this place, of which her father was rector. The parish contained, in 1821, 1,516 inhabitants, and in 1831, 1,372, of which last number 911 were returned for the township, being fewer by 89 than it contained in the year 1811.

[Description from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835
Transcribed by Rosemary Lockie ©1999]

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