Eyam seems like a place untouched by the world’s ills – an unspoilt country village of quaint sandstone cottages and dry stone walls, nestling in a remote, craggy valley.
But this beautiful village in the Peak District knows more about lockdown – and the horrors of a worldwide pandemic - than any other place in the country.
It was September 1665 when the bubonic plague arrived in this wild corner of Derbyshire, in a parcel of infected cloth delivered to the house of the village tailor.
As the plague took hold and claimed more lives, the villagers famously took the desperate and selfless decision to shut themselves off from the rest of the world, putting themselves in mortal danger – to protect others.