Mompesson's Well is a 17th-century

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

water well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

Eyam Eyam () 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 Ro ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

History

The well is named for

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

priest

William Mompesson William Mompesson (1639 – 7 March 1709) was a Church of England priest whose decisive action when his Derbyshire parish, Eyam, became infected with the plague in the 17th century averted more widespread catastrophe. The earliest reference to h ...

(1639 - 1709), who served at St Lawrence's Church during The Great Plague. Mompessons actions during the plague prevented widespread catastrophe in the parish. In 1665 plague hit England, and a consignment of cloth bound for Eyam brought with it the

infectious infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...

flea Flea, the common name for the order (biology), order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by hematophagy, ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult f ...

s which spread the disease. Mompesson, in conjunction with another clergyman, the ejected

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

, Thomas Stanley, took the courageous decision to isolate the village. In all, 260 of the village's inhabitants, including his wife Catherine, died before the plague claimed its last victim in December 1666. Mompesson filled the well with vinegar, and used it to sterilize coins that entered and exited the village. The memorial has been Grade II listed since 12 July 1967.

References

Buildings and structures in Derbyshire Derbyshire Dales Eyam Tourist attractions of the Peak District {{Derbyshire-struct-stub

History

See also

References