Returning to Babworth

After a quick visit to the town of Retford earlier this month we stopped to look at a church we had last visited, quite a few years ago now. I saw the sign to the church on the main road just outside the town and as soon as we drove into the car park I remembered it. Last time we had visited it was late September, slightly chilly with autumnal leaves blowing around. This time it was warmer and we were surrounded by daffodils.

The church of All Saints, Babworth is on the Mayflower Trail. It was here during the late 16th century and the first years of the 17th century that Richard Clyfton, the parson at the church, became sympathetic to the Separatist Movement - people who had separated or moved away from the established church because they wished for a simpler way of worship than that which was offered by the established church; they also belived in the freedom of worship and in religious tolerance. In 1605 Clyfton was deprived of his living for being "a nonconformist and nonsubscriber."

This was probably because he rejected things like wearing a cap and surplice, making the sign of a cross and bowing when the name of Jesus was spoken during services. He was offered a home by William Brewster who lived a few miles further north at Scrooby Manor House, where separatist meetings were also held. Richard Clyfton then became pastor of the Scrooby congregation.

The path behind the church is called the Pilgrim Way because it leads almost directly to Scrooby and it is thought that William Brewster, William Bradford and other sympathisers would have walked this way to hear Clyfton preach.

With a bit of searching I managed to find the photographs we took at the time of our first visit about eighteen years ago. Here are my friends Jenny and Susanna outside Babworth Church when we set out to follow the 'Mayflower Trail'.

Jenny was at that time curator of Gainsborough Old Hall, which had connections with the separatist movement because the then owner William Hickman was a sympathiser and allowed religious meetings to be held at the hall with the preacher John Smyth. She had also written a small booklet about that connection called 'Gainsborough Old Hall and the Mayflower Pilgrim Story'. Susanna was the curator of the museum where I worked in South Lincolnshire and her interest was the fact that a number of years before she had worked at the Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts.

On that day we also visited St Wilfred's church at Scrooby:-

and St Helena's Church at Austerfield where William Bradford, who eventually became governor of the Plymouth Colony, was born. He was also a follower of Richard Clyfton's teachings.

We went right to the coast near Grimsby to a place called Killingholme from where in 1608 the Pilgrims set sail to Amsterdam in Holland to escape religious persecution. This was their second attempt to flee their country, the first in 1607 having been thwarted at Boston in Lincolnshire where some of the leaders, including Clyfton, Robinson and Brewster were held prisoner for a while, in cells that can still be seen in the Guildhall Museum. The Scrooby Group of 1608 was again led by John Robinson from Sturton-le-Steeple and in their party was also William Brewster, William Bradford and Richard Clyfton. Some members of this group moved on from Amsterdam to Leiden but Richard Clyfton stayed in Amsterdam where he died in 1616. Four years later in 1620 members of the Scrooby group came back to Plymouth in the UK from where they sailed to the east coast of north America on board the Mayflower.

I remember also going to an historical re-enactment at Gainsborough Old Hall which was set in these turbulent times, here are some photos taken then, inside the hall. I apologise for the poor quality of the photos but you can get an idea of what it was like from them. It was fascinating just stopping and listening to the conversations as the re-enactors kept in character all the time no matter what was happening around them. Quite a skill.

They are dated July 1991 so I expect that is the year we followed the Mayflower Trail.