THE BIG RIDE
Via Winnats Pass, we visit picturesque Eyam, the Peak District ‘plague village’ that set an example to us all more than 350 years ago
Via the steepling Winnats Pass, Trevor Ward visits the Peak District village of Eyam, best known for its residents’ heroic social distancing acts during the bubonic plague outbreak of 1665
Four centuries ago, the bubonic plague arrived in Eyam via a package of cloth from London
When I arrive in Eyam, tired and hungry from a route that took me over two famous British hill climbs and across several windswept plateaus of the Peak District, time is already running out for mankind. “The prognosis is very poor,” says the scientist I’ve arranged to meet here. “Frankly, it’s bloody scary. People have every right to be worried.” Dr Michael Sweet is a biologist and epidemiologist at the University of Derby who is joining me for a ride around the ‘plague village’ of England.
Four centuries before social distancing, selfisolation and local lockdowns became the global norm, the bubonic plague arrived in Eyam via a package of cloth delivered from London. Today, the village is busy with mask-wearing daytrippers who have come to visit the graves and homes of some of the 260 residents who died.
“The village took extraordinary precautions to protect the surrounding communities, effectively sacrificing two-thirds of its own population,” explains Michael. “Yet, when you look at the death toll from coronavirus today, it feels as if we’ve learned nothing.”
First we ride to St Lawrence’s church where, in 1666, the Reverend William Mompesson took decisive action after his parishioners mysteriously started falling ill. “They didn’t know what the illness was, but they began taking all the right precautions,” says Michael. “From then on, no one was allowed in or out of the village, and all church services were held in the open air. The selfimposed lockdown lasted for about a year.”
Lone furrow
From the church, we follow the signs to the ‘Riley Graves’. We ride up a steep farm track to a field overlooking a valley and the neighbouring village of Stoney Middleton. On the hillside, enclosed by a low stone wall, are five gravestones and a tomb denoting the burial plots of the Hancock family, all victims of the plague.
“Again, the residents showed remarkable foresight,” says Michael. “Instead of burying all the victims together in the churchyard, families were encouraged to bury them away from the village in fields like this.”
Below us in the valley is another relic of the village’s extraordinary self-sacrifice – the ‘boundary stone’. “That’s where people from neighbouring villages would leave food. Of course, they still needed to be paid for it, so the
Eyam villagers would leave the money in hollows in the stone that were filled with vinegar to sanitise the coins.”
According to diaries from the time, the boundary stone was also where a young male villager regularly met with his sweetheart from Stoney Middleton.
“He could have been selfish and run away to be with her, but he chose to stay in isolation in Eyam,” explains Michael. “But one day, she arrived for their rendezvous and he wasn’t there. As a result of actions like his, the plague never spread to any of the surrounding villages. We could learn a lot from that today.
“If we’d put the whole of the UK into a strict and properly controlled lockdown for 14 days – the period of incubation – at the start of the coronavirus outbreak, things wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as they are now.”
We coast back down into Eyam, past a succession of green plaques on cottage walls denoting the death toll for each location, and stop at the village tearooms for lunch. After ordering a fish finger sandwich, Michael says that the rise of diseases, such as coronavirus and bubonic plague, which recently resurfaced in Mongolia, is a consequence of our abuse of the environment.
“Our carbon footprint is reducing the amount of habitat that our wildlife has to live in,” he explains. “This creates stress in the animals, causing disease in them. And because there are arguably few natural habitats that have been left untouched by man, we come into increasing contact with this diseased wildlife – living near it and eating it.”
Origin of species
More than happy to have a good sit down after my morning’s efforts, I let Michael expand on his theme. We’re in no hurry, after all. I quite fancy a slice of homemade chocolate tiffin to follow my all-day English breakfast.
“These animals carry hundreds of viruses and types of bacteria, so the likelihood of us encountering a zoonotic pathogen – one that can transfer from what we are hunting and eating to humans - is increased exponentially. Coronavirus is just the latest example.”
There’s a dramatic pause as a masked waitress delivers our food, before Michael continues.
“Crossing from one species to another is a tricky thing for a virus to achieve, but once it’s done, it’s cracked the code. Ebola and coronavirus originated in bats, while that recent outbreak of bubonic plague in Mongolia came from marmot meat.
“We’re just waiting for the next big thing to come about. If we’re panicking about the
The village took extraordinary precautions to protect the surrounding communities
coronavirus now, come back to me in 10 years when we’re looking at what else climate change has caused.”
Winn or lose
I thought I couldn’t feel any worse than earlier this morning when I’d been grinding up the deep cleft of Winnats Pass into a headwind. Almost two kilometres at an average gradient of 12 per cent in the shadow of menacing fists of limestone had left me physically shattered.
After a recuperation of sorts rolling up and down a succession of lesser hills and through pretty villages of slate roofs and manicured greens, I found myself at the foot of another iconic climb – the short but punishing ascent to Monsal Head. Compared to Winnats, this felt more like a sprint, though I was still barely able to stand when I joined the socially distanced queue for ice cream at the top.
But there’s nothing like hearing a disease expert’s grim prognosis for mankind to put things into perspective.
Even worse, by the time we’ve finished our main courses, they’ve run out of chocolate tiffin. There’s nothing else to be done other than climb back on our bikes and reflect on Michael’s words.
There should be sunshine and laughter on this August day, but instead the countryside wears a countenance of bleakness as if crushed beneath the weight of history repeating itself.
We head uphill through a corridor of trees before emerging onto a sombre plateau that ripples towards a sunless horizon. We pass the padlocked gates to a deserted gliding club and can see sheep dotting the distant hillsides like scraps of paper.
Before meeting up, Michael had given the impression that he wasn’t much of a cyclist and didn’t even own any Lycra, but it soon became clear that he was lulling me into a false sense of security. He has a James Bond-esque provenance as a skier, swimmer, sky diver, helicopter pilot and scuba diver, the latter two learned during his time working on conservation projects
around the world. His all-round abilities quickly become apparent as he makes short work of some seriously steep inclines.
On a more forgiving gradient, Michael introduces me to the concept of the ‘value action gap’, which at least sounds jollier than ‘deadly zoonotic pathogens’.
“It shows that 33 per cent of the population care about the environment and biodiversity, but only 10 per cent actually do something about it.
“We need to show the remaining 23 per cent how they can make a difference in simple ways by, for example, turning down the temperature on their washing machines or cycling to work.
“I’ve been encouraged by some of the lifestyle changes I’ve seen during the coronavirus lockdown. But I worry that all those people we’ve seen take up cycling will jump back in their cars once it’s over.”
My experience earlier today seemed to confirm Michael’s fears. After I’d left the strictly regimented and sanitised environs of my hotel – Perspex screens on the bar, masked staff and a meticulously demarcated one-way system -
I’d been surprised by the level of traffic and people in the villages of Hope and Castleton as I approached Winnats Pass. Yes, it’s peak holiday season in the UK, but it’s also the height of a major pandemic and yet people appeared to be carrying on as normal. Cars and motorhomes still seemed a more popular choice of transport than bicycles.
All’s well that ends well
Michael commutes to his job as Associate Professor in Aquatic Biology by bike. “We recently moved house, and one of the prerequisites for me was that the location had to be within a 40-minute bike ride of the university.”
I think back to my route this morning and the climbs of Winnats Pass and Monsal Head. Both are steeped in cycling history – Winnats hosted the National Hill Climb Championships on 10 occasions between 1947 and 1977 - but it’s a history of lightweight frames, gear ratios and gurning faces.
Meanwhile, Michael’s commute to work – along with the daily rides of thousands of other cycling commuters – won’t be commemorated in any historic archives, yet it is arguably doing more to save the planet in the face of a global pandemic than any record-breaking hill climb.
It’s still raining and we have arrived at the foot of the final big climb of the day. With 60 kilometres and more than a thousand metres of climbing already in my legs, I’m happy to let Michael do most of the talking as we huff and
The national hill climb championships have been held many times on Winnats Pass
puff our way up through the drizzle. I quickly regret this as he launches into another doomladen prophecy, this one to do with his current research into diseases that affect sea coral.
“Coral covers only one per cent of the ocean floor but supports 25 per cent of all marine life, but it is being bleached white by rising sea temperatures and left damaged and diseased by man-made pollution. We should be worried, because the coral is the canary in the coal mine.”
At the top of the climb is a signpost for Mompesson’s Well. Now bearing the name of the village’s heroic rector, this served as another dropping-off point for food and supplies when Eyam was in self-enforced lockdown. From here, it’s a steep, technical descent back to the attractive stone cottages of what was once the village of the damned.
As we say our goodbyes, the professor shows me a graph on his phone. “This illustrates the correlation between coronavirus infection rates and the sales of cucumbers.” It’s several seconds before I realise this is a boffin joke, referring to research that eating cucumbers could reduce deaths from Covid-19.
I set off in the drizzle for the final 14 kilometres back to my hotel, warmed by the realisation that, despite all his grim predictions, Dr Sweet has a sense of humour after all.