Most American groups I bring to England think the Mayflower story starts in Plymouth, the one in Massachusetts. It does not. It starts in a cluster of small villages in the English Midlands, in a manor house at a place called Scrooby, with a handful of farmers and tradespeople who decided they could no longer worship the way their government demanded. When I tell a group that the people we call the Pilgrim Fathers were, for the most part, ordinary villagers from Nottinghamshire and the edge of Lincolnshire, and that we are about to stand where they met in secret, the whole Thanksgiving story they grew up with suddenly has a real address.
This is one of the great surprises of English heritage travel for American faith groups. The road to the Mayflower runs through quiet English countryside, through a few churches and a manor house, through a brave and stubborn congregation that risked everything for the freedom to worship. Let me trace that road for you, because it is worth knowing before you ever set foot on the deck of a replica ship in Massachusetts.
A Congregation That Would Not Conform
To understand the Pilgrims, you have to understand the word “Separatist.”
In the early 1600s, England had one legal church, the Church of England, and everyone was required by law to belong to it and worship within it. Some reformers, the Puritans, wanted to purify the church from within. But a smaller, more radical group concluded that the church was beyond reform, that its structure and ceremonies were corrupt, and that true believers had to separate from it entirely and form their own gathered congregations. These were the Separatists, and separating from the national church was not just frowned upon. It was illegal, and it was dangerous.
In the villages around Scrooby, Babworth, and Sturton le Steeple in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, such a congregation formed. They were inspired by reforming preachers in the area, men like Richard Clyfton, and they began meeting separately to worship as they believed Scripture required, simply, without the prescribed ceremonies, governed by the congregation itself.
The meeting place at the center of the story was Scrooby Manor, the home of William Brewster, who held a respectable position as postmaster of the village. Brewster opened his home for worship, and he became the elder and leader of the congregation. Among the young men shaped by this fellowship was William Bradford, a teenage orphan from nearby Austerfield, who would grow up to write the history of the whole venture and to govern the Plymouth colony for decades.
So picture it. A manor house in a small village. A congregation meeting in defiance of the law. A respected local official risking his position to host them, and a teenage boy absorbing convictions that would carry him across an ocean. That is where the Mayflower story actually begins.
Flight to Holland
Worshiping illegally carried real consequences: fines, imprisonment, harassment, the loss of livelihood. The pressure on the Scrooby congregation grew until they made a hard decision. If they could not worship freely in England, they would leave it.
Their destination was Holland, which tolerated religious dissenters. But leaving England was not simple. Emigration was controlled, and a congregation of Separatists trying to slip out of the country was breaking the law. Their first attempt, around 1607, ended in betrayal and arrest at the port of Boston in Lincolnshire, a story worth telling in its own right. We cover the Boston escape and the Guildhall cells in detail here.
A second attempt the following year, from the Lincolnshire coast, was chaotic and frightening, families separated, men forced to sail while their wives and children were left behind on the shore. But eventually most of the congregation made it across, and they settled first in Amsterdam and then in the city of Leiden.
In Leiden they found what they had crossed the sea for: the freedom to worship as they chose. They stayed for roughly twelve years. They worked hard, mostly in the cloth trades, and they built a real community under their pastor, John Robinson, with William Brewster still at the heart of it.
Why They Left Leiden
If Leiden gave them religious freedom, why did they leave? This is the part of the story that gives it its full weight.
Several pressures built up. The work was hard and the community stayed poor. Their children were growing up Dutch, drifting from English ways and, the elders feared, from the discipline of their faith. A truce in the long war between Holland and Spain was ending, and the future felt uncertain. And underneath it all ran a deeper conviction: that God might have a purpose for them beyond mere survival, a chance to plant their faith in a new land.
So they made the second great decision of the story. A portion of the Leiden congregation, with William Brewster and William Bradford among them, would cross the Atlantic to the New World and establish a colony where they could worship freely and live as they believed.
The logistics were daunting and the risk was extreme. They secured backing, arranged ships, and in 1620 the venture came together. The Mayflower, carrying Leiden Separatists along with other English passengers, sailed from Plymouth on the south coast of England in September 1620. After a brutal crossing, they reached the coast of what became Massachusetts, founded Plymouth Colony, signed the Mayflower Compact, and endured a first winter that killed roughly half of them. William Bradford became governor and led the colony for most of the next thirty-six years, and his account, “Of Plymouth Plantation,” is the reason we know the story at all.
The people who stepped off the Mayflower were, at their core, the same congregation that had met in William Brewster’s manor house in Scrooby. The thread runs unbroken from a Nottinghamshire village to Plymouth Rock.
The Heritage Sites in England
The Pilgrim story is rooted in a real and visitable corner of England, an area now promoted as “Pilgrim Roots” country, in the Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and South Yorkshire borderlands.
Scrooby itself, in Nottinghamshire, is the heart of it. The site of Brewster’s manor and the village church of St Wilfrid, where the early reformers were shaped, anchor the story. The village is small and quiet, much as it would have been, and that very quietness makes the visit moving.
Babworth, nearby, has the All Saints’ Church where the reforming preacher Richard Clyfton drew the future Pilgrims to hear the gospel preached plainly. Austerfield, just over the Yorkshire border, is William Bradford’s birthplace, with its small Norman church where he was baptized. Sturton le Steeple is associated with the pastor John Robinson and other key figures.
A heritage itinerary through this region lets a group walk the actual ground of the Pilgrim congregation, the churches, the villages, the landscape, before the story leaves England. It pairs powerfully with a visit to Boston in Lincolnshire, where the first escape attempt ended in arrest and where the Guildhall cells still stand, and where the name was carried to a far more famous Boston across the Atlantic. That is the next chapter.
For groups building a wider English faith itinerary, the Pilgrim story sits alongside the Reformation drama of the King James Bible, published in 1611, the very Bible these Separatists would have known and carried. Start with our England spiritual sites hub to see how the pieces connect.
Heritage Tours builds the Pilgrim Roots region into England itineraries for American congregations who want to stand where their national founding story actually began. For many groups, especially around Thanksgiving themes, it is the emotional high point of the trip.
FAQ: The Pilgrims of Scrooby and the Mayflower
Where did the Mayflower Pilgrims actually come from? The core of the Mayflower Pilgrims came from a Separatist congregation in the villages of Scrooby, Babworth, Austerfield, and Sturton le Steeple, in the borderlands of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and South Yorkshire in England. They met at William Brewster’s manor house in Scrooby before fleeing to Holland and eventually sailing on the Mayflower in 1620.
Who were William Brewster and William Bradford? William Brewster was the postmaster of Scrooby who hosted the Separatist congregation in his manor house and became its elder and leader. William Bradford was a young orphan from Austerfield shaped by the same congregation, who became governor of Plymouth Colony for most of thirty-six years and wrote “Of Plymouth Plantation,” the main account of the Pilgrim story.
Why did the Pilgrims leave England, and then leave Holland? They left England because worshiping outside the Church of England was illegal and brought fines, imprisonment, and harassment. They settled in Leiden, Holland, where they had religious freedom for about twelve years. They left Leiden because the work was hard, their children were growing up Dutch and drifting from their faith and language, the political situation was uncertain, and they felt called to plant their faith in a new land.
Can a group visit the Pilgrim heritage sites in England? Yes. The “Pilgrim Roots” region centers on Scrooby (Brewster’s village and St Wilfrid’s Church), Babworth (All Saints’ Church), Austerfield (Bradford’s birthplace), and Sturton le Steeple. It pairs with Boston in Lincolnshire, where the first escape attempt ended in arrest. Heritage Tours builds this region into England itineraries for faith groups.
How is the English Boston connected to the Pilgrim story? Boston, in Lincolnshire, is where the Scrooby congregation’s first attempt to escape to Holland in 1607 ended in betrayal and arrest. They were held in cells at the Boston Guildhall, which can still be visited. The Massachusetts city of Boston later took its name from this English town through its Puritan settlers.
For an American congregation, standing where the Pilgrim story began is one of the most meaningful journeys England offers. Learn more about Heritage Tours’ England programs, or contact us to start planning.