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Subject: [GM-L] 1885 Visit to Ancestral Home of Gov. John Winthrop in England
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 11:29:50 EDT
Subject: The Ancestral Home of Governor John Winthrop Visited
Source: Groton Historical Series by Dr. Samuel A. Green Vol II 1890
OLD GROTON
THE ANCESTRAL HOME OF GOVERNOR JOHN WINTHROP
The Hedgrows of Old England on the Fourth - The Old Winthrop Church -
Sudbury and Newton and Bury St. Edmunds
The following letter, written by William Clark of London was printed
in the "Boston Daily Advertiser," July 20, 1885. It is of sufficient
interest to Grotonians, to appear in this Historical series.
Part I
p.89
[From our London Correspondent.]
London, June 8, 1885.
Independence Day was thoroughly American in the brightness of the sky
and the heat of the sun's rays; and the green pastures and still waters
of the country seemed, to two persons at any rate, preferable even to
Mr. Cyrus Field's sumptuous banquet at the Buckinham Palace Hotel. In
company with a Boston friend, I found myself on the morning of the
"glorious Fourth" at the old town of Bury St. Edmunds, in the county of
Suffolk, dear to all reader's of Carlyle's "Past and Present." Having
duly secured our apartments at the solid and substantial Angel Hotel,
opposite the grand old gateway of the ruined abbey, we determined to
make a pious pilgrimage to the litte village of Groton, the ancestral
home of Governor John Winthrop.
What more suitable way of spending in England, the Fourth of July?
But how to get there? The great Eastern Railway, which monopolizes
this part of England, does not touch this little out of the way village
which lies in its quiet seclusion among the country roads and winding
lanes of pleasant old Suffolk. After consultation of guide book and
the county directory, we discovered that the nearest railway station was
Sudbury, from which a drive of seven or eight miles would bring us
to old Groton. To Sudbury accordingly we journeyed; an old town, with
two or three fine old churches, pleasantly situated among green meadows
through which flows a little winding stream. Many of its population
of some 8000 are engaged in the manufacturing of matting, while the rest keep
shops or till the neighboring fields.
A suitable conveyance was procured at one of the numerous inns of the
town and we were soon spinning rapidly along the country roads. Past
high banks with thick, luxuriant hedges, and variegated with clumps of
sweetbriar, whose frangrance filled the summer air. Past old cottages
with honeysuckles twining round the door and little gardens gay with
marigold and heartsease, and with such delicious roses in rich abund-
ance; geraniums at nearly every cottage window, and sometimes pretty
little yellow flowers growning from the thatched roofs. Past fields
of waving corn, made bright here and there by thick patches of scarlet
poppies, dear to the artistic spirit though frowned upon by the bucolic
mind. Here we pass a spacious country house with a large lawn in front
on which, under the fine old elm and lime trees, are girls playing
tennis or swung in a hammock, reading, it may be, a novel of Mr.
Howells's. There again is an old house with the date of 1655 printed
legibly on its walls. There it has stood in quiet, surrounded by stately old
trees since the time of Cromwell. On a sign post we see
the words: "Sudbury, Newton," indicating the respective directions of
these two places. "How strange it seems," says my friend; "we might
be in Massachusetts."
But the scenery is more like the western than the eastern part of
Massachusetts, albeit less rugged and bearing signs of a rich, ancient
civilization, that has stretched back for centuries. We pass through
Boxford, an old village through which Winthrop and his ancestors must
have paced many a time. A fine old church stands in a kind of square,
and then comes the chief village street, mostly of old and humble houses,
though one large red brick structure with stone dressings re-
minds us of the aesthetic revival of our own time. We soon reach
Groton, the first visible of it being an old village inn, the "Fox and
Hounds," round which we pass to the churchyard. Here is a litte green
in front of the gate, with rich lime trees, now in blossom, waving
their branches overhead. Beside the gate of the churchyard is a low
roofed, comfortable old house, the garden rich with roses, the open
windows showing large old rooms, giving a certain undefinable sense of
comfort and ease. A lady sits sewing in a garden chair. It is a scene
of perfect peace.
Most of the graves in the churchyard have no stone; only a low green
mound marks the resting place of the nameless, lowly dead. In other
cases the stone is covered with brown lichens or is defaced or rendered
nearly illegible by age. But many comparativley new stones prevent the
place from presenting the antique appearance of Stoke Pogis, for in-
stance or other churchyards famous in English history. On the south
side of the church, by the outside wall, where the nave adjoins the
chancel, is a stone monument commemorative of Adam Winthrop, the first
of the name, who was lord of the manor of Groton, with the Winthrop
Arms carved thereon. But we cannot leave without seing the inside, so
we go in search of the sexton, led to his house by a pretty little girl
with rosy cheeks and dark eyes. The sexton turns out to be a bright,
pleasant man, proud of the connection of his little village with the
New England village across the Atlantic and an admirer of the old
church. He remembered two visits Mr. Robert C. Winthrop had paid
to Groton and how he and the rector had held much converse together.
"If you come through my garden," he said, "you can walk to the old
mulberry tree which dates from Winthrop's time; then you can see Groton
place, the house where the present lord of the manor lives, and then we
will go to the church."
To be continued Part 2 p. 91
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Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth
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