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The History and Antiquities of Eyam
By William Wood (1842, 1845 & 1860)

TRADITIONS OF THE PLAGUE

TALBOTS AND HANCOCKS OF RILEY;
AND RILEY GRAVES

TALBOTS and HANCOCKS of RILEY, the rapid extinction of whom almost defies description. These two families were carried off by the plague with horrid despatch; their brief transition from health to sickness, and from sickness to death, was attended with circumstances perhaps never before experienced.

RILEY GRAVES are about a quarter-of-a-mile eastward of Eyam, on the top, or rather on the slope of a hill, the base of which partially terminates in Eyam.

* Riley, or Roylee, is the name of a plot of land, on the top and slope of a hill, adjoining the eastern verge of Eyam.

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These mountain tumuli are generally known to be the burial places of the Hancock and Talbot families, during the plague. Perhaps there is no place capable of producing such peculiar and serious impressions. These insulated memorials of the hapless sufferers, viewed in conjunction with the surrounding scenery, give a tone to the feelings as pathetic as inexpressible. We feel as if we were holding communion with spirits who murmur a saddening requiem to pleasure and frolicsome gaiety. All seemed so hallowed, so over-shadowed, and so deeply imbued with solemnity.

Those who have visited the Riley Grave Stones have doubtless noticed, about fifty yards from the enclosed cemetery, a small ash tree, standing in a north-east direction of the stones, and it was a few yards south of this tree where once stood the habitation of the Hancocks. There is not the least remains of that dwelling to be seen at this day ; the disconsolate mother, after burying her husband and six children, as hereafter described, deserted it; and it was sometime after carried away to repair the neighbouring fences. The house in which the Talbots lived was about two hundred and fifty yards west, or rather north-west of that of the Hancocks ; the present Riley farmhouse is built on its site. The road from Manchester to Sheffield passed, in those days, close by this house, and the Talbots, being blacksmiths, had a smithy adjoining the house, and close to the road. Besides this occupation, they farmed one part of Riley old land, and the Hancocks the other. The Talbot family consisted of Richard, his wife, three sons and three daughters; one son, however, had left Riley, and lived at some distance, before the commencement of the plague in his own family, and therefore escaped. The high and airy situation of Riley, one would imagine, ought to have operated against the distemper; and being besides a full quarter-of-a-mile from Eyam, the two families were not compelled to have any particular or continued communication with its inhabitants. How or by what means this subtle agent of death found its way to Riley is not known; most probably some of the Talbot family brought it from Eyam, as they all perished before the infection, or at least the death of any one of the Hancocks. The pestilence had raged full ten months in Eyam, before the Talbots of Riley were visited by this dreadful messenger.

On the fifth of July, 1666, died Bridget and Mary, daughters of Richard and Catherine Talbot, of Riley. They were young and beautiful: they had sported with innocence and mirth on the flowery heath only a few days before death came and laid his cold, chilly hand on their lovely bosoms. Often had they roved on the neighbouring moors, with hearts swelling with joy; they had spent full many a sunny day in chasing the many-hued butterfly amidst the busy hum of the wild and toilsome bees; and then, like two sweet roses bursting into bloom, they were suddenly plucked from their lonely parent bed. These two lovely girls fell victims to the horrid pest in one sad, direful day. Their weeping and terrified father immediately committed them to the earth beside his mournful home. On the seventh of the same month he performed the sad but imperative task on Ann, the last of his daughters; and on the eighteenth, on his wife, Catherine. Robert, his son, died and was buried on the twenty-fourth, and on the ensuing day the father himself died, and was buried, leaving one son, who on the thirtieth died also, and was buried, probably by the Hancocks on the same day. Thus, from the fifth to thirtieth of July, perished the whole of the household of the fated Talbots of Riley. They were interred nearly together, close by their habitation; and in the orchard of the present Riley house, a dilapidated tabular monument, with the following very neatly erased inscription, records their memories:- "Richard Talbot, Catherine, his wife, two sons and three daughters, buried, July 1666."

The pest now passed on to the habitation of the Hancocks, where the work of death commenced by the infection of John and Elizabeth Hancock. On the third of August, only three days from the death of the last of the Talbots, they both died, and were buried a short distance from their cottage, by the hands of their distracted mother. Although her husband and two other sons survived four days after the first victims, yet tradition insists that the mother of this family buried them herself, altogether unassisted. John, her husband, and two sons, William and Oner, now sickened of this virulent malady. She became frantic; she saw that the whole family were destined to the same fate as the Talbots, and she wrung her hands, in bitter despair. During the night of the sixth, Oner died, and her husband a few minutes after, and before morning William gave his last struggling gasp. Can imagination conceive anything so appalling as the case of this suffering woman? On the third she buried a son and daughter, and in the night of the following sixth, she closed the eyes of her husband and two other sons. How awful her situation! being far from any other dwelling; not a soul to cheer her sinking spirits ; not a being to cast her sorrowing eyes upon, save her two surviving children, whose lamentations were carried afar on the startled morning breeze. Such was the terrible night of the sixth of August, to this woeful woman: often she ran to the door and called out in agony for help; then turning in again she fell on her knees, and

"With hands to heaven outspread, Her frequent, fervent, orisons she said, In loud response her children's voices rise, And midnight's echo to their player replies."

- CHARLEMAGNE

The beams of the following morning's sun fell on the shallow graves which she had made for her husband and two sons. Dreading to touch the putrid bodies, she- as she had done by the other- tied a towel to their feet, and dragged them on the ground in succession to their graves. Hapless woman! surely no greater woe ever crushed a female heart.

The end of two short days, from the seventh to the ninth, saw her again digging another grave anong the blooming heath for her daughter Alice. On the morning of the next day, the tenth, Ann. her only child left at home, died and was buried. Thus

"each morn that rose, Her grief redoubled, and renewed her woes."

- CHARLEMAGNE

A few days after the death of her last daughter, she left her habitation at Riley, and went to her only surviving son, who had been some years previously bound an apprentice, in Alsop-Fields, Sheffield, with whom she spent the remainder of her sorrowful days. It was this son who erected the tomb and stones to the awful memory of his fated family; and it was one of his descendants, a Mr. Joseph Hancock, who about the year 1750, discovered, or rather "recovered", in Sheffield the art of plating goods.

* Although tradition says all the Hancocks perished, except the mother and the son apprenticed at Sheffield, still it appears from the Register that there was at least one besides, probably living from home at the fatal time. The discovering or "recovering" the art of plating goods in Sheffield is said to belong more justly to a late Mr. Thomas Bolsover, of Whiteley Wood, Sheffield, an ancestor of the Mitchell and Silcock families.

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The houses on the top part of Stoney Middleton are nearly on a level with Riley Graves, divided by two narrow dales. The inhabitants of these houses, according to a very popular tradition, watched with profound awe, the mother of the Hancocks, morning after morning, digging the graves for her husband and children. Awful and terrible scene! Did they not in imagination hear her audibly exclaim with the holy prophet, "Oh! that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of fears, that I might weep day and night!"

It has been observed by some writers that Riley, or Riley Graves, was the general burial place of those who died of the plague; this is, however, a mistake: the Talbots and Hancocks only were interred there. The Talbots have never been noticed by any writer. Six head-stones and a tabular tomb record the memories of the Hancocks. The site of the graves was originally on the common or moor, on the verge of which was the dwelling of the Hancocks. That part of the common was afterwards enclosed, and the stones, which lay horizontally and marked precisely the places of the graves, were placed in an upright position, and somewhat nearer together; and are now surrounded by a circular stone fence or wall. The late Thomas Birds, Esq., Eyam, of antiquarian notoriety, caused these memorials to be put in a better state of preservation. It is to be hoped that the present owner of the stones and land will see that these relics are not destroyed nor further disturbed. On the top of the tomb there are the following inscription and quaint rhymes:-

"John Hancock, sen., Buried August 7, 1666
Remember man
As thou goest by,
As thou art now,
Even once was I;
As I doe now
So must thou lie,
Remember man,
That thou must die."

On the two sides and two ends of of the tomb are the words "Horam Nescitis, Orate, Vigilate." On the head-stones the inscriptions are as follows:

Elizabeth Hancock, Buried Aug. 3 1666
John Hancock, Buried Aug 3 1666
Oner Hancock, Buried Aug 7, 1666
William Hancock, Buried Aug 7, 1666
Alice Hancock, Buried Aug 9 1666
Ann Hancock, Buried Aug 10, 1666

It is impossible for the tourist to describe his feelings fully and minutely when he visits this hallowed and lonely place: he beholds, in the language of Ossian, "green tombs with their rank whistling grass; with their stones and mossy heads; " and his soul becomes suddenly overcharged with grave and solemn emotions. The scenery around these rude and simple monuments of eventful mortality, is highly picturesque; adding greatly to the impressiveness of the sensations which a visit to the place invariably creates. Standing within the sepulchral paling, we behold to the left a long range of sable rocks sheltering the ancient villages of Curbar and Calver. farther on, Chatsworth meets our view, and forms a conspicuous object in the prospect. Proud Masson is seen in the dim distance, holding imperial sway over a thousand lesser hills. To the right we glance on the plain tower of Eyam Church rising above the ivy-adorned cottages in rural magnificence. Still further on we see the peaks of endless hills, where the winding classic Cressbrook flows- the Minstrel Newton's Arethuse. Looking behind we see plantations of young trees richly commingled with purple-blooming heather. Such are a few of the most prominent objects viewed from Riley Graves- "The Mountain Tumuli," where heath-bells bloom- where nestling fern and rank grass grow- where lone and still,

"Their green and dewy graves the unconscious sufferers fill."

- WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT

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