Willoughby Lincolnshire: The Pocahontas Connection

1 Reply

The year was 1607, Mary Queen of Scotts only son was king of England,  Scotland and Ireland and on the north bank of The Haven Boston Lincolnshire  the Scrooby Separatists later to be known as The Pilgrim Fathers made their  first attempt to escape and seek religious freedom.

Also the first English settlement in the New World in Jamestown Virginia  North America had just been established. Among the hundred and five men who  set sail from London a year earlier was a Lincolnshire son named John Smith  of Willoughby, he was responsible for establishing trading links with the  American Indians.

It was during this time that he was captured by a group of Indians who  murdered some of his companions and threatened to execute him but according  to the story John Smith told he was rescued from this fate by the  intervention of the eleven year old Pocahontas who pleaded for his life.

John Smith became president of Virginia in 1608 returning to England in  1609.

In 1614 Pocahontas married John Rolfe of Heacham Norfolk.

St Helenas's Church Willoughby LincolnshireSt Helenas’s Church Willoughby Lincolnshire

John was born in Willoughby Lincolnshire in 1579. He was Baptised in St  Helenas’s Church on the 9th January 1580.

He died in London in 1631.

The Stained Glass Windows from left to right: The Western Window, The John Smith Window and The Eastern Window

The Stained Glass Windows from left to right: The Western Window, The John Smith Window and The Eastern Window

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Detail taken for the three stained glass windows St Helenas’s Church Willoughby Lincolnshire Commemorating John Smith’s Life and Times

The Pilgrim Fathers Monument, Fishtoft, Boston, Lincolnshire

Leave a reply

Boston Lincolnshire as far as I can remember has always been a challenge to navigate, it seems to be constantly full of cars making their way either into Tennyson country, The Lincolnshire Wolds or the seaside resort of Skegness. Our destination is not so far afield but is the village of Fishtoft on the outskirts of the town then from there onto the banks of The Haven.

The River Witham arrives in Boston Lincolnshire where it flows into The Haven which is a tidal inlet of The Wash.

It is on the north bank of The Haven that you will find a monument to The Pilgrim Fathers, it was here in 1607 that the Scrooby Separatists later to be known as The Pilgrim Fathers made their first attempt to escape and seek religious freedom abroad as they had been refused leave to legitimately emigrate. They planned to sail to Holland but the captain betrayed them and they were return to Boston.

Pilgrim Fathers Monument The Haven Lincolnshire

Near this place in September 1607

those later known as the

Pilgrim Fathers

were thwarted in their first attempt to sail

to find religious freedom across the seas.

Erected 1957

Parish Church of St Guthlac Fishtoft Lincolnshire

Parish Church of St Guthlac Fishtoft Lincolnshire

 

Sempringham Lincolnshire

Leave a reply

St Andrews Church and The monument to Gwenllian of Wales both sit isolated at the end of a narrow track.

Sempringham_Licolnshire

St Andrews Parish Church and Sempringham Abbey Church

The current church of St Andrews sits to the north of the site where St Mary’s Priory once stood and where Gwenllian of Wales was held captive after being abducted by King Edward I in 1283 until her death .

The priory of St Mary’s was founded by St Gilbert around 1139 and was an order of both Gilbertian monks and nuns, it was destroyed in 1158. The present church once was larger than it is today due to the fact that in 1788 the Norman chancel and transept were taken down because it had become dilapidated.St Andrews Church and The monument to Gwenllian of Wales both sit isolated at the end of a narrow track.

The monument you pass on the way to the church commemorates Gwenllian of Wales, daughter of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last true Prince of Wales.

Gwenllian of Wales

Monument Commemorates Gwenllian of Wales

Gwenllian was abducted by King Edward I in 1283 after the defeat of her father, because she was a threat to King Edward’s hold on power in Wales, rather than kill the infant Gwenllian was taken to Sempringham Priory and kept a captive in order that she remained childless. She spent the rest of her life at St Mary’s Priory Sempringham in Lincolnshire as a nun of The Gilbertian order where she died at 54 in 1337.

 

St Lawrence Church Snarford Lincolnshire

Leave a reply
St Lawrence Church

St Lawrence Church, Snarford, Lincolnshire, England

The small Medieval church of St Lawrence sits to all appearances in the middle of nowhere in the Lincolnshire countryside, it is a classic case for the metaphor, never judge a book by its cover.

Sir Thomas St Paul and Wife

Sir Thomas St Paul and Wife

Sir Thomas was born in 1582 he was an MP, and twice served as Sheriff of Lincolnshire. His wife Lady Faith had connections to many of the most powerful families in the county.

The Son and Daughter in Law

The Son and Daughter in law.

Sir George St Paul and his wife Frances who was the daughter of Sir Christopher Wray, The Lord Chief Justice to Elizabeth I, Sir George was the builder of Snarford Hall and was described by Lord Burghley as “one of the best men in the country”.

Lord Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick

Lord Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick

He divorced his 1st wife on November 1605 and married the widow of Sir George St Paul, Frances Wray on 14 December 1616.

Lord Rich was described as being of a foul and vindictive disposition and of nasty temper.

Heacham Norfolk: The Pocahontas Connection

Leave a reply

John Rolfe of Heacham Hall Heacham Norfolk sailed to America to seek his fortune not long after Captain John Smith of Willoughby in Lincolnshire set sail to North America as one of the early American settlers in 1607.

St Marys Church

St Marys Church, Heacham, Norfolk, England

 

John Rolfe is best know for introducing Tobacco into Virginia he and his other Norfolk companions anchored in Chesapeake Bay and named their settlement Jamestown. It was during this time that John Rolfe meet Pocahontas the daughter of Chief Powhatan of the Algonquinn Red Indians.

20130228_Norfolk_22-168

Pocahontas Memorial

 

In April 1612 when Pocahontas was about 15 years old she was lured on board a vessel and taken to Jamestown as hostage, In around 1613 she converted to Christianity under the instruction of Rev Alexander Whitaker born in Cambridge, who had settled in North America in 1611, it said that it was during these instructions that John Rolfe and Princess Pocahontas meet feel in love and married in 1614.

The Pocahontas Connection

Heacham Village Sign

 

Maxey Mill Cambridgeshire

Leave a reply

John Clare the Northampton Peasant Poet would walk the two miles from Helpston to Maxey at least once a week while he was working for Francis Gergory a bachelor who lived with his Mother, they were the Clare’s next door neighbour running the Blue Bell public house in Helpston.

John writes in, Sketches in The Life of John Clare, “that he would go once every week to Maxey a village 2 miles distant for a bag of flour as it was sold cheaper than at home and as his mistress was an economist she never lost sight of a cheap pennyworths”.

He also maintains in his Autobiographical Fragments that one of his worsts labours was the journey in winter afternoons to fetch flour as he had to pass places on his return when it was often getting dark, where it was said to be haunted by ghosts and hobgoblins.

Cambs

 

Tydd St Giles Cambridgeshire

Leave a reply

SONY DSC

The separate Bell Tower of St Giles originally was part of the main building but it tumbled to the ground in the 18th century.

There has been two reasons given for this catastrophe, the first being that of strong winds combined with poor foundations. The second explanation which has such a gothic charm it makes you wish that it was true.

It is said that the peel and clammer of the bells so irritated Lucifer himself that he toppled the tower to the ground.

All credit must be given to Sir Gilbert Scott who undertook the rebuilding of the tower on it present site in 1880s, for his courage in putting right what Old Nick had destroyed.

Tydd St Giles Village Sign

 

Marholm Cambridgeshire

Leave a reply

St Marys The Virgin Church Marholm is set on the outskirts of the village on the road to Milton Hall and Castor. It is the last resting place of the Fitzwilliam Family.

St Marys The Virgin Church Marholm

St Marys The Virgin Church Marholm

To reach Marholm Church you first have to pass The Fitzwilliam Arms with its welcoming presence, taking the road which leads to Milton Hall the home of the Earls Fitzwilliam.

The Fitzwilliam Arms
Village Sign and 
Just outside the village boundary you will find an entrance into a field where St. Mary’s The Virgin Church sits in all its isolation.

The church is the last resting place of The Fitzwilliam family, the 5th Earl Charles William Wentworth (1868-1857) who was a patron of JOHN CLARE, who’s mother and father were married in this church .

John Clare‛s mother Ann Stimson was Parker Clare’s senior by eight years, Ann was aged 35 when she married Parker, her parents where John (Town Shepherd) and Elizabeth who were from nearby Castor.

Fitzwilliam Resting Place

The headstone with the crest under the tree belongs to William Thomas George Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, the 10th Earl Fitzwilliam (1904—1979) he was last to hold the title.

Dorothy L Sayers Cambridgeshire Connections

4 Replies

Bluntisham

This was the home of Dorothy L Sayers writer and creator of the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey.

St Marys Church Bluntisham

St Marys Church, Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire

Her father was rector of St Marys Church Bluntisham between 1897 and 1917 before moving to the Parish Church in Christchurch.

He was responsible for the partial restoration and expansion to a ring of eight bells in 1910 which was only completed in 2004 when the bells were rehung in a new iron frame. This made a full circle ringing possible for the first time for 160 years. Perhaps an inspiration for his daughter’s novel The Nine Tailors.

St Mary's Church, Bluntisham, Across The Flooded Great River Ouse.

St Marys Church, Bluntisham, Across The Flooded Great River Ouse. Cambridgeshire

It is said that the names of some of her characters in The Nine Taylors were inspired by the stone masons inscriptions in Bluntisham Churchyard a walk through the long grass failed to discover a H. Gotobed or an Ezra Wilderspin, but when all hope was almost lost we stumbled on a Thoday, a pity that it was not a William or James or even a Mary.

Cambs-Churches

Grave Stone, St Marys Church, Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire

Christchurch

Christchurch Village Sign

Christchurch Village Sign, Cambridgeshire, England

The Christ Church, Christchurch,

The Christ Church, Christchurch, Cambridgeshire, England

Henry and Helen Sayers moved from Bluntisham to Christchurch in 1917 and was rector there until his death in 1928.

Dorothy L Sayers it is said preferred Bluntisham, but was a frequent visitor to her parents home in Christchurch. She is said to have stated; “Christchurch is the last place God made, and when He’d finished he found He’d Forgotten the staircase!”

Christchurch Parish Church Christchurch Cambridgeshire England

Henry Sayers photograph can still be seen in the vestry, the commemorative tablet to the couple was placed by parishioners at on the west end of the nave. They are buried in a grave on the north east side of the churchyard which was originally unmarked but their last resting place is now celebrated by a marble stone bearing their names.

March

St Wendra Church is situated on the outskirts of the fenland market town of March. Now surrounded by housing mainly of the modern variety, but this does not detract from the experience of crossing the threshold and encountering the heavenly angles suspended in all their glory.

Saint Wendreda's Church, March,

St Wendreda’s Church, March, Cambridgeshire.

They are justifiably world famous and have been admired by many, notably Sir John Betjeman and Dorothy L Sayers .

St Wendreda's Church

Angle Roof, St Wendreda’s Church, March, Cambridgeshire

Cambs-Churches

Angle Roof, St Wendreda’s Church, March, Cambridgeshire

Miss Sayers has Mrs Venables the rectors wife in The Lord Peter Wimsey novel The Nine Tailors compare the hummer beamed angle roof in Fenchurch St Pauls with those of Needham Market and March

“of course the angel roof is our great showpiece, I think myself it is lovelier than the ones in March and Needham Market”.

We did try to make our own comparison by visiting the church in Needham Market, Suffolk but found it locked with no indication who held a key, perhaps we may try an other day.?

Cambs-Churches

St Wendreda’s Church, March, Cambridgeshire.

Chapel Bridge Cambridgeshire

Leave a reply

Chapel Bridge crosses the Bevill’s Leam which runs from the junction of Whittlesey Dyke and the Twenty-foot River to Mere Mouth where it joins the Old River Nene deep in the Cambridgeshire Fens.

In times gone by barges would make their way along Bevill’s Leam stopping at this point to be loaded with agriculture produce.

At onetime a barge which was converted into a chapel would provided travelling church services.

January 22, 2012_Cambridgeshire-1148_001
Chapel Bridge

Today you are more likely to encounter on the banks of Bevill’s Leam anglers competing in fishing matches.