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Just a few miles north of Babworth on the ancient highway which was used by the Romans and called the Great North Road is the village of Scrooby.
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Scrooby's medieval church is St. Wilfrid's. William Brewster and his family attended this church and resided at Scrooby Manor, where William was the area agent of the Archbishop of York (whose palace it was).
He had been baptized in this church in August 1593. He was punished for absenting himself when he came to disagree with Anglican services. William's brother James was the Anglican vicar at Sutton-cum-Lound, nearby, with responsibility for the church at Scrooby
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Scrooby church yard, in the centre of the village, has a rural calm that makes the persecution of people who stopped attending services here hard to imagine.
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Scrooby church has had new pews since Pilgrim times, but some of the carved decorations survive from the benches where Pilgrims listened until they gave up on parishes and the secure familiarity of ancient custom to flee into exile.
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A century ago, one of the ancient pews, with its rough carving of grapevines, was donated by the church to Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
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Scrooby church's east window depicts acts of charity. It was made in 1889 by Powell Brothers of Leeds
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The village pound for stray animals stood at the north part of the church yard, together with the stocks. The stocks were sold to American hunters of Pilgrim souvenirs more than one hundred years ago
Another cottage that shows what most farmers simple houses looked like is The Cottage at Rempstone, southeast of Nottingham
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The Old Vicarage is the only house left in Scrooby that shows the half-timber construction that was common in Pilgrim times. Most of Scrooby Manor, like Gainsborough Old Hall, was built in this way, although nothing of the half-timber work at Scrooby Manor survives. Massive framing surrounds areas filled with panels of clay and sticks - daub and wattle.
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Scrooby Manor, owned by the Archbishop of York, counted 39 rooms in the early 16th century, when King Henry VIII stopped by with several hundred courtiers and servants. Liking the palace, he bought it in 1544, but the Archbishop bought it back a few years later, donating it again to the archdiocese. Later Queen Elizabeth I also pressed the Archbishop to sell her the house, considering it a worthy lodging for a monarch.
The Archbishop resisted. William Brewster, Sr., had been appointed his bailiff here in 1575. King James, on his way from Scotland to become King of England, passed by and also attempted unsuccessfully to buy it for the crown.
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Vestiges of the moat and outbuildings can be perceived in irregularities in the fields around the remnants of the house (now private). Roof timbers from the old house were re-used in the brick barn and dovecote seen on the left.
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Two gothic window frames of stone, as well as the massive bricked-up archway, indicate that the present farmhouse is part of the medieval mansion. Probably this brick wing formed the front along the east side of the double courtyards of the house.
The Brewster family had divided the house and farm, leasing out part of it since the 1590's to another farmer, also an active separatist.
From this manor house Brewster supervised the Archbishop's property in seventeen subordinate villages as well as offering hospitality and a change of horses to official messengers on the road between London and Edinburgh.
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The Manor House became in that sense a post on the Great North Road, of which William Brewster was the post master.
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Nowdays, hospitality and a good meal are provided by the landlord of Scrooby's pub, The Pilgrim Fathers, which was built in 1771.
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A view from the pub frames the church tower.
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Fields behind the pub display Scrooby's rural character - little changed in 400 years.
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