Mayflower roots beside the Great North Road
Scrooby
A small Nottinghamshire village shaped by William Brewster, the Separatist congregation and a modern Plymouth Rock memorial.
- Best for
- Mayflower history, church heritage and a pub stop
- Give it
- A village visit, or longer for the 12–14-mile heritage trail
- Don't miss
- Scrooby Rock, inscribed with all 102 Mayflower passengers
The Fox verdict
A compact village with an outsized Pilgrim story
Scrooby brings together William Brewster's story, St Wilfrid's Church, a signed heritage trail and the village's sole pub.
Start with Scrooby Rock and the Mayflower memorials at St Wilfrid's, then follow the wider story towards Austerfield and Babworth or settle in at the Pilgrim Fathers for food and a pint.
Where to go
Places in Scrooby
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesScrooby Rock
A two-by-five-metre replica of Plymouth Rock inscribed with the names of all 102 Mayflower passengers and unveiled by villagers in 2024.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 15 minutes
- Locality
- Scrooby
Mayflower/Pilgrims Trail
A circular heritage trail linking the churches at Babworth, Scrooby and Austerfield by the lanes the congregation is said to have walked.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 4 hours
- Locality
- through north Nottinghamshire
- Access
- The traditional round trip is around 12–14 miles.
All Saints' Church, Babworth
The Babworth church where Richard Clyfton preached to the young William Bradford and the Scrooby Separatists.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Babworth
Food & drink
1 placePilgrim Fathers
Scrooby's only pub serves homemade classics, Sunday roasts and changing chalkboard specials, with Timothy Taylor Landlord as its sole regular real ale.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Great North Road, Scrooby
- Access
- A small snug is set aside for dogs, and there is a large beer garden in summer.
History & heritage
2 placesSt Wilfrid's Church
An early 15th-century church with an octagonal spire, carved historic furnishings and two Mayflower-related memorial plaques.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Scrooby
St Helena's Church, Austerfield
A church with 12th-century Norman work in William Bradford's birthplace and a stop on the heritage trail from Scrooby.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Austerfield
Things to do
1 placeScrooby Village Hall and recreation ground
The 1970s village hall, updated in 2008, hosts community groups and a monthly cinema beside the recreation ground and playground.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- alongside the village recreation ground and playground
No places match this filter. Choose All places to reset the list.
Three ways to explore Scrooby
Signature outings
Meet Scrooby Rock
The two-by-five-metre Plymouth Rock replica records all 102 Mayflower passengers by name.
Settle into the Pilgrim Fathers
The village's only pub pairs changing chalkboard food with Timothy Taylor Landlord and a snug set aside for dogs.
Find St Wilfrid's spire
The Grade II* church combines an octagonal spire with two memorials to Scrooby's Mayflower connection.
The village story
Scrooby: rock, religion and the road north
The accepted Travel Fox article follows the village from its new Mayflower memorial and sole pub through Brewster's story, Domesday Scrooby and the Pilgrim route.
Scrooby Rock and the village pub
There is a replica of Plymouth Rock in Scrooby, two metres by five, inscribed with the names of all 102 Mayflower passengers. Villagers unveiled it at the Scrooby Show in September 2024. It sits in a village of 307 people that most of England drives past on the A1 without a second look.
The Pilgrim Fathers, on the Great North Road, is the only pub. It was the Saracen's Head until John Smith's brewery bought and renamed it, though the 1771 datestone is still there if you look. The other pub, the George and Dragon, reputedly 800 years old, closed in 1969 and was never replaced. Timothy Taylor Landlord is the sole regular real ale, there's a snug set aside for dogs, and a beer garden for the rest of the year. Cai runs the bar and restaurant, on at least one reported occasion single-handed. Food runs from noon Tuesday to Sunday off a chalkboard that changes daily — fish and chips, burger, Sunday roast, cauliflower cheese, red cabbage, what one reviewer simply called "proper pie". It holds 4.2 out of 5 on TripAdvisor from 167 reviews.
Village life and St Wilfrid's
There is no shop. Scrooby is small and residential enough that the pub does the job of a village centre on its own, including a weekly quiz and bike nights through the summer.
St Wilfrid's Church, Grade II*, has an octagonal spire with a clock face and a weather vane, fifteenth-century at its core. William Brewster worshipped here before he fell out with it entirely. Two plaques inside mark the Mayflower connection: one from the Pilgrim Society in 1920, and a bronze one unveiled in 1955 by a return pilgrimage of 104 American descendants of the original passengers. "St Wilfrid's Church — the church that Brewster disavowed — is still standing," wrote the blogger Yorkshire Pudding. "However, the old manor house where he grew up and held puritanical services is no more."
Brewster's manor and Domesday Scrooby
He's right about the manor. Brewster leased it from 1588 while working as the Crown's postmaster, and used it to host a Separatist congregation of forty or fifty who met there in secret on Sundays. In 1608 he organised their escape to Amsterdam, then Leiden, then in 1620 the Mayflower itself; he died at Plymouth Colony in 1644. The manor didn't survive him by much — the gatehouse was pulled down in 1558, and Charles I ordered the rest demolished around 1637, leaving only a farmhouse-sized remnant that still stands.
The Domesday Book valued the whole place at eight pounds, held by the Archbishop of York, with 14 villagers and 6 smallholders working six plough teams between them.
The Pilgrim route and nearby Bawtry
A signed trail follows the route Brewster's congregation is said to have walked to hear their preacher at Babworth, via Barnby Moor and on to Austerfield, birthplace of Plymouth's future governor William Bradford. The River Ryton, which once turned the village's corn mill, still runs under a Great North Road bridge built in 1767. Ogilby's 1675 road book logged the place as "a village of two furlongs" — barely a quarter of a mile end to end, and not much bigger now. There hasn't been a railway station since 1931; Retford and Doncaster, eight and ten miles off, do that job now.
Bawtry, with its tea rooms and independent shops, is a mile and a half up the road. Scrooby just gets on with being 307 people, comparable to its Domesday-era population, and one very good pub.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Nottinghamshire, linked directly to their property pages.
Nottingham
Camila's Penthouse Central Stay with Balcony
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Anna's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Blair's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Melissa's Central Stay
- Sleeps 13
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Stephanie's Central Stay
- Sleeps 6
- 2 bedrooms
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Pilgrim Fathers — camra.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Wilfrid's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Scrooby Rock — scrooby.org operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Mayflower/Pilgrims Trail — nationalchurchestrust.org national body or asset manager
- Scrooby Village Hall and recreation ground — scrooby.org operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Helena's Church, Austerfield — nationalchurchestrust.org national body or asset manager
- All Saints' Church, Babworth — nationalchurchestrust.org national body or asset manager