The sixth of a regular series of columns from the other side of the Atlantic discussing the people, places and events that led to the Mayflower voyage from an English perspective. This month as the Mayflower replica glides home triumphantly we visit the London port where the original began its voyage.
The author’s novel Voices of the Mayflower; the saints, strangers and sly knaves who changed the world, is out now.
‘Near to that part of the Thames on which the church abuts Rotherhithe... there exists the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London...’
So wrote Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist as he set the scene for the terrible denouement when the evil Bill Sikes tries to escape the vengeful mob by jumping from a house overlooking the filthy waters of the Thames but slips and hangs himself.
In typically bravura style adjectives and adverbs jostle to capture Dickens’s disgust at the ‘desolation and neglect’ of a part of London which for centuries was 'a hamlet where there is and long hath been a dock and arsenal where ships are laid up, built and repaired,’ as a 17th century account had it.
Dickens was writing in 1838 but it’s easy to imagine that 240 years earlier when the Mayflower lay at anchor preparing to make its momentous voyage in July 1620, the place would have been just as grim. A maze of narrow, muddy streets, thronged by ‘unemployed labourers of the lowest class, brazen women, ragged children, and the raft and refuse of the river.’
This was home to the skipper of the Mayflower, Christopher Jones, and his first mate, John Clarke and it was on long-gone wharves that the Mayflower used to unload its cargoes of wine from Bordeaux. In fact, in May of 1620 it had sailed in with 50 tons of wine for a wealthy importer.
What remains of those days? Like many of the villages and towns that we have visited on the Mayflower trail, sadly, next to nothing, but that’s not to say this part of London is not steeped with maritime history.
Its name derives from the Anglo-Saxon era (410 - 1066) with Rethra meaning a sailor and Hythe, a landing place. In 893 King Alfred granted land at ‘Rethereshide’ to an archbishop. He is the English king best known for hiding in the home of a peasant woman when on the run from the Vikings, letting his concentration slip and allowing her cakes to burn. It’s one of the first stories we learnt as school children - a bit like Washington and his cherry tree.
The docks date back to the early16th century and earned royal approbation in 1605 when the shipwrights of England were incorporated to maintain King James’s ships and barges, which were 'slenderlie and deceitfullie' constructed.
The shipbuilders, the caulkers and carpenters, were kept busy - but poorly paid - right up to World War Two when the area was flattened by German bombers. By then the docks were doomed. Because of bigger vessels and containerisation, trade shifted down river to the mouth of the Thames and the last ship left in 1970.
Today, what we find is more gritty than pretty. The simplest and most interesting way to get to know the area is to follow the Thames Path, which you can pick up anywhere along the river in the city. The organisers of the anniversary, Mayflower 400 have produced a nifty app which goes from site to sight.
Where to start? The Mayflower Pub claims to be near where the Mayflower was fitted out - though as with so many Mayflower myths and legends no one knows for sure. In 1620 it was called the Shippe Inn and rebuilt as the Spread Eagle and Crown in the 19th century. War damage led to a major refurbishment in 1957 so its cozy wood paneled bar is not as olde worlde as it seems.
Across the road is St Mary’s Church which was built in 1716 to replace a 12th century version and it is here that skipper Jones who died in March, 1622, is buried in an unmarked grave with his first mate John Clarke nearby.
Near the church yard is a strange looking sculpture dedicated to Jones which depicts St Christopher, looking back towards the Old World, carrying a child looking forward to the New while round the corner from the pub is whimsical statue The Sunbeam Weekly and the Pilgrim’s Pocket which has a newsboy in 1930’s dress, reading a newspaper telling the story of The Mayflower and all that has happened in America since. The pilgrim is reading the paper over the boy’s shoulder, looking astonished at how the world has developed since 1620. Well he might!
Now a stroll along cobbled streets and alleyways which in Dickens day were full of ‘offensive sights and smells, stacks of warehouses, tottering house fronts, dismantled walls, chimney half crushed’ but today have been replaced by 19th century granaries and warehouses converted into apartments and smart offices.
A mere half a mile upstream we reach the Angel. It is just as likely - maybe more so - that the pub was the watering hole favored by the Mayflower’s crew as they waited to sail to New England but the original has long gone though it does claim fittings from the 17th century.
Like the Mayflower Pub it’s a real pleasure to sit by the waterside, watching the mudlarks with their metal detectors searching for old coins on the muddy but optimistically named Bermondsey Beach and count the tourist boats and tugs chug by. It serves a decent pint too.
Across the River, on the northern bank, are the gleaming towers of Canary Wharf the financial center which rose from those abandoned docks in the 80s and 90s and to the left, with its discordant array of high-rise office blocks, the City of London.
Head west toward the unmistakable outline of Tower Bridge with its 19th century neo-Gothic towers, cross over a foot bridge to Shad Thames, once part of the largest warehouse complex in London, now converted into claustrophobic but sought-after apartments and a broad wharf lined with smart restaurants.
Keep following the app for a broader sense of pilgrim history. Borough Market, has existed for 1,000 years and is now a fashionable attraction with its stalls of fruit and veg, cheese and wine. Next, a replica of the Golden Hinde, the 16th century warship on which Francis Drake circumnavigated the world, 1577-80 and encouraged other explorers to set their sights on America. Along the riverbank the infamous Clink prison, where several Separatist leaders were imprisoned and hanged, is now a museum replete with gruesome exhibits.
Did the men negotiating to hire the Mayflower visit the Globe Theatre built in 1599 where Shakespeare’s plays were first performed? Probably not, but they might well have heard about The Tempest, which had its first opening there, thanks to Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins. He had led a mutiny against the skipper of a ship after it had been stranded on the Bermudas some 12 years before. Some say Shakespeare was much taken with the tale and based his play on the scandal. Hopkins might well have thought himself the inspiration for the wise Prospero but given that he was later fined for running a disorderly tavern, it is fair to say he was more like the bibulous butler Stephano.
Perhaps he reminded them of the words of Prospero’s daughter, the love struck Miranda:
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in it!
Jones no doubt was mightily glad to leave the brave but daunting world of New England when he sailed home in April 1621 and relieved to be back in action that year carrying a less demanding ‘cargo’ than the settlers - a load of salt.
It may have been the ship’s last voyage.In 1624, the Mayflower was sold for the pittance of £128, eight shillings and precisely fourpence and was demolished or allowed to rot away.
This month’s Wicked insult: Flutch Calf-lollies
Flutch; The act of doing a million other things than what you are supposed to be doing - and slowly.
Calf-lolly; a fool, an idle simpleton.
Info: Mayflower 400. For guided tours; rbhistory.org.uk. The nearest stations are at Rotherhithe and Canada Water.
Stay: this is not really hotel country but the Double Tree Hilton in Rotherhithe Street was once the site of a 17th century warehouse.
Eat and drink: If you get that far, Borough Market is a treat.
Breaking out: The Thames Path is 184 miles long and stretches from the river’s source in Oxfordshire to the west, through the center of London to the Thames Barrier at Charlton, south east London.
Pictures: The Mayflower being demolished. The Angel.
