Do you have a family tree and might you have ancient links to England? Were your ancestors among the 102 passengers on board the Mayflower who left Plymouth, Devon, in 1620, for present-day Massachusetts to form the first substantial European settlement?
We can take you to where the journey started on the Thames just outside a London pub – the only one in England allowed to sell US stamps – and to the grave of a pivotal person on the Mayflower journey.
We can drive you down to the west country to visit the spot from where the Mayflower left English shores on its incredible voyage. Check out what happened and what life was like aboard in the city’s museum. Then walk along Plymouth Hoe, where vice-admiral of the fleet Sir Francis Drake was summoned from a game of bowls to defeat the Spanish Armada and threat of invasion in 1588.
En route to Plymouth is just an 85-mile trip from London to reach Stonehenge, one of England’s most ancient and baffling structures. Discover how it was built by walking round the mysterious stones and getting the full history in a state-of-the art visitors’ centre. We can then return you to London or carry on for 135 miles to Plymouth for an overnight stay in high-quality accommodation which we can arrange.
Do you know if your ancestors were on board the Mayflower? London was home to around a third of her passengers so there’s plenty of scope for tracing your family line through the capital’s old church records. Do you have an English-sounding surname such as Allerton, Clarke, Ellis, Fletcher, Hooke, Mullins or Williams, for instance? All were passengers on the Mayflower. You can find the other names listed online and discover why they were either ‘saints’ or ‘strangers’! Or how about travelling on to Bath, the Roman city famed for its warm spa waters, where we can also take in the American Museum, Europe’s only permanent exhibition telling the story of American history and culture and proving a popular destination for Americans. And don’t forget Glastonbury, scene of the famous pop festival and a centre for Celtic mystery
How did the pilgrims survive two months at sea? What was wrong with their ship? Find out more by letting us drive you down to the old seaport of Harwich, on the Essex coast, where the original Mayflower was built – a 90-mile ride from central London. Now, a life-size replica of the Mayflower is being created to sail to America in 2020, the 400th anniversary of the original journey.