Meandering Through Time
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      • Chapter One: Monmouthshire, Wales.
      • Chapter Two: The Beaufort Patronage
      • ​Chapter Three: Out With the Old
      • Chapter Four: Kentish Connections and Opportunities >
        • Chapter Five: Getting Personal
        • Chapter Six: ​The Children of Thomas Vaughan
        • Chapter Seven: Moving on
        • ​Chapter Eight: At Ludlow
        • Chapter Nine: The Arrest
        • Chapter Ten: Three Castles
        • Chapter Eleven: The Beginning of the End
        • Chapter Twelve: A Death Deserved ?
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Pilgrim Fathers Memorial

12/9/2019

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Out and About 8th September 2019
Boston - Fishtoft

The Pilgrim Fathers Memorial is a small granite marker on the banks of the River Haven at Fishtoft in Lincolnshire. It commemorates part of the journey of the Pilgrim Fathers, a small group of people who took to the sea in search of religious freedom. Contrary to what is commonly thought, the Pilgrim Fathers, those people from Gainsborough, and Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, did not board the Mayflower in Lincolnshire and sail to the New World instead they were betrayed, arrested, imprisoned and tried here in a Boston, it was only later that they reached their original destination of Leiden in the Netherlands.
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The memorial, I think, is a disappointment to some visitors ‘This is not a memorial to a place the pilgrim fathers sailed from, it’s a memorial to where they didn't sail from. Well, why have it then?’ asked one person. Is that a fair comment or not?

​The thing is, we all fall into the trap of seeing events in history as a scene from an epic film, there are no square-rigged sailing ships here and no simply dressed puritans looking towards heaven. When what we see is not what we’re expecting we’re disappointed, but we shouldn’t be. No matter how small a piece of history is, it needs to be remembered and marked, we don’t need films, we need memorials to spark our imagination and to make us ask questions. So yes that’s why this marker is here.
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The Haven

11/9/2019

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Out and About 8th September 2019
Boston - Fishtoft

The Haven in Lincolnshire is a tidal river that flows into the Wash and has been used for centuries by ships sailing into the ancient port of Boston. It joins with the River Witham at some point but I’m not sure exactly where. One place could be at what is called Sluice Bridge, another could be where it passes through the docks on London Road.
The Haven is not the prettiest river in our country, but it does play an important part in our history and that of America too because in 1607 a number of religious separatists attempted to leave the country from here for a better life in the Netherlands, that’s not bad for a waterway that is only eighty-two miles long.
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The Pilgrim Fathers - John Adams Way in Boston

9/9/2019

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Out and About 8th September 2019
Boston - Fishtoft

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Yesterday we took to the road for the first part of a Pilgrim Fathers themed trip, and as you can see from my photo, we are stuck in traffic on John Adams Way in Boston in Lincolnshire. How coincidental is that? John Adams, you may know, was the second President of the United State of America and regarded as a Founding Father. His link to Boston is via his wife whose mother was a descendant of the Quincy family, a branch of which lived in the Fishtoft, on the banks of the River Haven, where the Pilgrim Fathers attempted to flee persecution in England in 1607, and the very place we were heading.

John Adams Way was opened in 1978, if you are interested there is a interesting article on this road way here

                 www.bostonstandard.co.uk/news/people/john-adams-way-at-40-an-illustrated-history-1-8482752


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History of Wansford Bridge

7/9/2019

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Out and About 30th August - 1st September
Sacrewell - Wansford - Collyweston - Stamford

I imagine this view of Wansford Bridge has been snapped by many a tourist or drawn by more than a few artists and you can understand why. It’s large sandstone blocks catch the light beautifully, it’s water meadow is full of flowers that are nibbled at gracefully by a field full of horses. That’s as near perfection as you can get don’t you think?
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Before the existence of the present ten arched stone bridge that stands in what’s called the Nene Valley or its predecessor a 13th century eight arched wooden bridge, the River Nene was crossed by use of a ford.

The first mention of a bridge in the village of Wansford comes from Oliver Sutton who was Bishop of Lincoln between 1280 and 1299 who granted ‘to all who shall contribute to the upkeep or repair of Walmesford Bridge shall be entitled to twenty days indulgence from purgatory.’ It seems, however, there were few who took up his offer for thirty-five years later the bridge was in such a state of disrepair that a toll was charged to maintain and repair the road. Over two hundred years later, in the first ten years of the reign of Elizabeth I, the bridge was still made from wood. In 1571, a great storm swept away three of the bridge’s arches and a new stone one was built. A study of the bridge tell us that the first seven arches can be dated to 1577, another three date to about 1674 and the largest arch was built in 1795. It is under this arch that the River Nene flows, however, in the spring of 1998, when the river flooded, water ran under all ten of the bridge’s arches and completely covered the water meadows. What a fine, but frightening sight, that must have been.
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Over the centuries Wansford Bridge has been crossed by horses, carts, carriages, motor cars and not to mention hundred of people on foot, and that includes me. To think, as I crossed this bridge just last weekend, Mary Queen of Scot was doing the same almost five hundred years earlier in the September of 1586 as part of her four day journey from Tixall in Staffordshire to Fotheringhay Castle where she was later executed.
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Wansford Bridge

7/9/2019

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Out and About 30th August - 1st September
Sacrewell - Wansford - Collyweston - Stamford

Wansford is a village on the Great North Road just five miles south of Stamford in Lincolnshire, a place where we were supposedly heading this time last week. We got sidetracked when we stopped off in the south side of the village to take a look at it’s wonderful bridge that crosses the River Nene. It is thought that there has been a bridge at this point since Saxon times.
You can see that it’s a single track road bridge and there are no traffic lights, which, as you can imagine, can cause a bit of a kerfuffle between on coming traffic and yes there was a slight altercation between two cars whilst we were there. Thank goodness some bright spark had the idea of bypassing the village, that new thoroughfare was complicated in 1929.
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Wansford Bridge

7/9/2019

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Out and About 30th August - 1st September
Sacrewell - Wansford - Collyweston - Stamford

​Standing on the border (wasn’t that an album by the Eagles?) between Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough. 
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This bridge separates villages under different parish councils - Wansford Parish Council, within the area of Peterborough Unitary Authority which comprises the village north of, and including, Wansford Old Bridge and the village to the south of Wansford Old Bridge is represented by Sibson-cum-Stibbington Parish Council and comes under Huntingdonshire District Council.
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The River Nene

6/9/2019

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Out and About 30th August - 1st September
Sacrewell - Wansford - Collyweston - Stamford

It is quite lovely spending part of a summers day standing on a bridge overlooking an English river watching the coming and goings of barges and boats.
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The River Nene is navigable for nearly all it’s length, you can board your craft at its junction with the Grand Union Canal and spend a leisurely time just cruising until you get as far as the Wash.
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Interesting to me at present is the fact that there are a number of watermills along the banks of the Nene, Hardwater Mill is said to be a thousand years old (I think I’ll take that fact with a pinch of salt) Anyway, local history tells us that this mill was hiding place of Thomas Becket after he escaped from Northampton Castle in 1164. He is said to have fled down the Nene and was sheltered by the miller before fleeing to France.
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The River Nene from Wansford Bridge

6/9/2019

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Out and About 30th August - 1st September
Sacrewell - Wansford - Collyweston - Stamford

Rising in three locations in Northamptonshire, the River Nene, seen here from Wansford Bridge, is the tenth longest in the United Kingdom.
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On its journey to the sea it makes its way to the Lincolnshire fens and as it does it passes through the port of Wisbech and then on to Sutton Bridge, where in 1216 you may remember poor King John lost his ‘treasure’  I’ve been but I never found it!
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After its one hundred mile journey it finally enters The Wash.
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    Out & About and Family History Stuff.
    ​

    It never ceases to amaze me that I ALWAY find something of interest when out in our motor home. This page is where I write about my findings Also, when I am researching I have so much going on in my head that I just have to write that down too. 

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