St Lawrence stands in the middle of Eyam, the village that shut itself in when plague arrived in 1665 to stop the disease spreading beyond its boundary. The rector William Mompesson moved services into the open air and closed the churchyard to burials, so families buried their own dead in the fields. In the yard is a carved Saxon cross of the 8th century, one of the best preserved anywhere, and the church keeps a Norman font and later wall paintings. Open access.
© John H Darch / Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
