Custom British Tours
Lincolnshire to Virginia....
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As always we will start where it all began.This time in Lincolnshire in the East of England where 400 years of American history has its roots! We'll drive to Willoughby on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds where in 1579, John Smith, the man who was to become the President of Virginia started life as the son of a tenant dirt farmer.We will look around St Helena's Church where Smith was baptized and enjoy the stained glass windows depicting his story,
We will visit the Village of Tattershall over which looms the renovated Castle, built in 1430 by Ralph Cromwell, Treasurer to King Henry IV. It is one of the earliest brick buildings in England. Here the young John Smith, back from an initial foray into the world of adventure fighting the Spaniards in Holland, learned to fight as a knight in armour under the patronage of Lord Clinton, The Earl of Lincoln.
Although not directly connected with John Smith we could, if you wished, take the opportunity of a short detour to Boston, home of the church with the tallest tower in England and from where the Pilgrim Fathers made their first attempt to flee England in Some were imprisoned and tried at the Guildhall.
On to King's Lynn a thriving sea port in the heart of which sits England's inest collection of Mediaevel merchant's houses and wharehouses. John Smith worked here as a merchant.
Cross over the County border and enjoy the sloping beaches and the soft undulating West Norfolk countryside, which has remained unchanged over time. Along this coast of The Wash is Heacham, birthplace and family home of John Rolfe who played a major part in ensuring the survival of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Rolfe married the legendary Princess “Pocahontas” (Matoaka Rebucka Pocahontas), whose image is featured on the village sign. In the Church of St Mary the Virgin at Heacham we''ll find a memorial to Pocahontas carved by Otillea Wallace, a pupil of Rodin. She is dressed in a stylish Jacobean trilby hat and a great neck ruff, which was the fashion of the period (taken from a real image of her carved when she visited London).
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