Magpie Mine and a Plague Village.

We had a very quiet night parked by the side of the road next to the start of the Monsal Trail. After breakfast we drove the short distance to the Magpie Mine. This former lead mine began in 1869 and continued to work well into the 1950’s making it the last one working in Derbyshire.

There are several generations on mine workings here, starting with the Cornish Engine House which was used to pump water out of the mine. Later additions included a steam engine powered winding house and more recently a diesel powered winch from a trawler. This was used to haul ore and men up and down the 700ft mine shaft. The trawler winch is housed in a corrugated iron shed which has the dubious honour of being one of only three such buildings to have Scheduled Monument status!

We wandered around and took some pictures before heading back to Kiki for coffee. A few miles further on we parked in a lay-by just outside of Eyam (rhymes with steam).

We wandered around the village and found the “plague houses”. In 1665 a tailor caught bubonic plague from flees in a box of material he ordered from London. The villagers isolated themselves from other villages to prevent the disease spreading. Over the next few months some 260 villagers died.

Heading uphill out of the town for about a mile we came to Mompessons Well. Here during the plague, people from the surrounding villages left food for the residents of Eyam who would leave money to pay for the goods in the water so as to clean it.

We took the ancient pack horse route back to the village and then branched off again to see the Riley Graves which is where a whole family who died of the plague were buried.

We returned to Kiki and drove through the village to a free car park we spotted on our walk. Here we had lunch before heading north to Grindleford where we parked in another lay-by so that we could walk along the scenic Padley Gorge. 

We followed the river downstream through oak forest for a mile or so before crossing a bridge and heading back up the other side.

Back in Kiki we drove a few miles up onto the moor where we found a large off-road area to park for the night. We had our meal and settled down for the evening.