Along the Pilgrim Trail ~ Scrooby Manor, Nottinghamshire, England

Along the Pilgrim Trail, Part 2

Scrooby Manor

Vincent and I recently took the General Society of Mayflower Descendants Historic Sites Tour of England, Wales and The Netherlands along with 41 other enthusiast participants (known as "The 43").  We traced the footsteps of the Separatists and the Mayflower passengers and crew all around these countries with some amazing tour directors, guides, historians and authors.  We were given access to places off the usual tourist trails, and behind the scenes.  We had a wonderful time, and I will be blogging about it over the next few weeks.

After visiting All Saints Church in Babworth, our guide, the author Sue Allan, took us to Scrooby Manor, which is just a few miles away.  The Manor House belonged to the Archbishops of York, and the baliff was William Brewster, who passed the job on to his son, William Brewster.  The son William was the Separatist who attended the sermons of Rev. Richard Clyfton in Babworth. The elder Brewster died in 1590.

Sue Allan welcomed us to Scrooby Manor

When Clyfton was excommunicated in 1607 for being a non-conformist, they began to hold secret worship meetings in a room at Scrooby Manor.  The Reverend John Robinson became their spiritual leader.  After several threats of persecution and arrest, the Scrooby Congregation decided to leave together for The Netherlands, where Clyfton had fled.  This Scrooby Congregation was the first part of the group which became the Pilgrim Fathers.

During the tour Sue pointed out the upper room where the secret meetings probably took place, as well as describing the entire manor that once stood on this spot.  Most of the buildings are now gone, but we all posed for a photo in front of the one that remained.  Brewster and Bradford descendants posed, too, as well as the Jackson descendants (because of the new revelations about this lineage made at the 2017 Mayflower Congress by Caleb Johnson, using his collaborative research with Sue Allan - Susannah White Winslow was born Susannah Jackson and grew up in Scrooby Manor.  According to Jeremy Bangs' article in the 2014 Mayflower Descendant this building is where the Jackson family lived, and the Brewsters lived in the Great Hall which is no longer standing).

"On the three hundredth anniversary
of the sailing of the Mayflower
with the Pilgrim Fathers to New
England, this tablet was unveiled
by the representatives of the
Anglo-American Society, in
commemoration of the heroic virtues
of the little band of lovers
of truth and freedom which first met
in this place.
September 2,      1920"      

"This tablet is erected by the
Pilgrim Society of Plymouth,
Massachusetts, United States of
America, to mark the site of the
ancient manor house where lived
WILLIAM BREWSTER,
From 1588 to 1608, and where he
organized the Pilgrim Church, of
which he became the ruling elder, and
with which, in 1608, he removed to
Amsterdam, in 1609 to Leyden, and in
1620 to Plymouth, where he died
April 16, 1644."

"To commemorate the visit
on 14th July 1977
of 360 Congregationalists
from ten different countries
representing the International
Congregational Fellowship.
Stand fast therefore in the liberty
Wherewith Christ hath made us free"

The upper window where Sue Allan thinks the
Separatists met in secret at Scrooby Manor.

"The 43" posed in front of the last standing building of Scrooby Manor
courtesy of Susan Roser

Scrooby is a tiny village of about 300 people.  It was on the Great North Road, like Babworth, until 1766, when the road was rerouted.  Scrooby Manor is not open to the public.  It lies near the borders of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.  There is a local pub in the village named "The Pilgrim Fathers".  

For more information:

C-Span William Brewster and Scrooby Manor talk by Sue Allan

https://www.c-span.org/video/?321072-1/william-brewster-scrooby-manor

My lineage from Rev. John Robinson is at this link:
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/08/surname-saturday-robinson-of-england.html

Part 1 of this series "Babworth, Nottinghamshire":
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/10/along-pilgrim-trail-babworth.html  

Part 3 of this series "Gainsborough, Lincolnshire":
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/10/along-pilgrim-trail-gainsborough.html  

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Along the Pilgrim Trail ~ Scrooby Manor, Nottinghamshire, England", Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 6, 2017, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/10/along-pilgrim-trail-scrooby-manor.html: accessed [access date]).