Along the Pilgrim Trail ~ Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England

Along the Pilgrim Trail, Part 3

The Old Hall at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England

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.

Gainsborough is an old medieval town in the middle of the area where the Separatists sprang to life in Lincolnshire.  There is an Old Hall built in the 1400s, which probably looks much like Scrooby Manor’s Great Hall when William Brewster grew up there. This Old Hall still looks much like it did when King Richard III and King Henry VIII both stayed there.  

The very wealthy William Hickman bought the Old Hall in 1596, and he had non-conformist religious beliefs (Puritan).   He let some of the Separatists use the Old Hall for secret worship ceremonies before leaving for The Netherland in 1609, lead by Reverends John Smyth and John Robinson.  The United Reformed Church, a block away, was named the John Robinson Memorial Church in his honor.

We had a fantastic tour of the Old Hall lead by an enthusiast guide who even dressed up like a Pilgrim for us!  She led us through the history of the Hall from medieval times to the days of the Pilgrims. We learned that the Hall was used for sleeping, eating, celebrating, and all sorts of ceremonies.  King Henry VIII would ride his horse right into the hall and dismount at the head table for feasts. Visiting the medieval kitchen was a highlight of the tour.

It was very interesting to see how the Separatists lived in a time that spanned the post medieval world, the Reformation, and the beginnings of American History. What a fascinating time period!

Inside the Old Hall where feasts and ceremonies took place
as well as ordinary sleeping and living 

The Old Hall still looks like it did when it was built 600 years ago

Some of the fixings for a nobleman's dinner

We had a tour of the medieval kitchens, fit for feasting! 

The young noblemen would learn deference to their lords
by serving them at feasts. Here they would pick up the dishes
from the kitchens and deliver them to the great Old Hall.

Rev. John Robinson Memorial Church

+ TO THE
GLORY OF GOD
THIS STONE IN MEMORY OF
JOHN ROBINSON PASTOR AND EXILE
WAS LAID ON JUNE 29TH 1896
BY THE HON. T. F. BAYARD
AMBASSADOR IN ENGLAND
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The Gainsborough Old Hall website:  https://www.gainsborougholdhall.com/  

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 2 of this series "Scrooby Manor"

https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/10/along-pilgrim-trail-scrooby-manor.html   

----------------------------------

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Along the Pilgrim Trail ~ Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 9, 2017, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/10/along-pilgrim-trail-gainsborough.html: accessed [access date]).