The Pilgrims’ journey from Plymouth, England to Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts did not happen as it was meant to. The Mayflower had twice tried to leave for the New World before she managed it. Twice she set out with her companion ship, the Speedwell, and twice the Speedwell began taking on water, forcing the two ships back to England.
The second return brought them to Plymouth, where the Speedwell then remained. The Mayflower would have to brave the Atlantic crossing alone. After 66 stormy days, the Mayflower reached Cape Cod, more than 600 miles north of her original destination of Jamestown. She tried to sail south to Virginia, where she was expected, but relentless storms blew her back up the coast. In Massachusetts, the Pilgrims faced a winter with almost no provisions and no knowledge of the land – or who might inhabit it.
From the beginning, the Pilgrims risked their lives not only for freedom of religion, but the freedom to self-govern. Before they even set foot in the New World, Plymouth governor William Bradford and the men of the Mayflower gathered in the cramped ship’s cabin and put in writing their intention for their new lives in Plymouth Harbor: to form “a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation… as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony.” In what became known as the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims acknowledged that they were still “loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James” – but in forming their own “civil Body Politick,” they also made the first steps to becoming an independent nation. More than 150 years later, John Quincy Adams hailed the Mayflower Compact as the forerunner to the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the American nation.
To understand more about the town the Pilgrims eventually set off from, I traveled to the original city of Plymouth and took a ferry out across Plymouth Sound. Off the stern I saw the green coast of England recede, just as the Pilgrims on the Mayflower would have done. From the bow I could see the Atlantic Ocean opening just beyond the land’s encircling arms. Beside me there was a middle-aged woman clutching a plastic cup of rosé, taking selfies on her Samsung.
Modern Plymouth is a funny place. It bears almost no resemblance to the city it was 400 years ago. It suffered terrible damage from German bombers in 1940 and no one has done much with it since. There have also been some strange attempts to commemorate its noble past. Sir Francis Drake launched his attack from Plymouth against the invading Spanish Armada in 1588. Today, the streets are lined with casinos and grubby shopping centers called “Drake’s Circle,” with tacky replicas of his ship, the Golden Hind, hanging over the entryway.
There are a few charming Victorian additions to the city – the West Hoe is a wide, neat promenade which runs parallel to the harbor and gives wonderful views of the Sound. Smeaton’s Tower, an 18th-century lighthouse which has been rebuilt three times but looks pristine in newly painted red and white stripes, stands there too.
The Beatles were photographed on this headland in 1967, casually looking out at the water as they relaxed in the grass. In true tasteless fashion, Plymouth city planners decided it would be a good idea to memorialize the photograph by commissioning an artist to create copper prints of the Beatles’ backsides and stick them in the grass in the same spot – a “durable and interactive artwork,” they call it. Tragically, because they couldn’t get prints of the real Beatles’ backsides, they used the backsides of a Beatles tribute act, the “Fab Beatles.” Even more tragically, the prints of the four backsides now inhabit the very same spot where Drake stood as he waited for the Spanish Armada.
The one bit of the medieval town that survived the Luftwaffe has succumbed to 21st-century tat. The Barbican has the largest concentration of historic cobbled streets anywhere in England, but today they are lined with seedy nightclubs with names such as “Out! Out! Ibiza!” and “Annabel’s Kingdom of Nightly Pleasures.” During my mid-afternoon walk along the harbor there was an unnerving soundscape of throbbing disco beats and an almost total absence of human conversation. The Three Crowns pub blasted Bruno Mars across the deserted harbor.
The one bit of the medieval town that survived the Luftwaffe has succumbed to 21st-century tat
Under the shade of a dilapidated garage, I stopped to ask directions to the “Mayflower Trail” from a young woman with an orange face, a salon apron and tinfoil plastered to her head. In 2020, Plymouth attempted to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s crossing, but dropped most of the plans because of the pandemic. What remains consists of nine pillars stationed around the harbor with a bit of information about the city as it was in 1620, but the trail is so poorly marked that I only found four. Two hours later, I gave up trying to find the other five pillars and decided to get some dinner. I stopped at a Grade I-listed merchant’s house from 1490, a rare example of a medieval domestic space still in use. The house is now occupied by a pizza joint called “Knead Pizza.”
After dinner, I wandered up to the headland that looks over Plymouth Sound. At night, the harbor came to life. Ships and fishing boats glided across the black water. In the street far below, teenage hooligans cruised the strip in their Ford Fiestas, slowing dutifully for the speed bumps before zooming off again. Perhaps they were on their way to “Out! Out! Ibiza!” The lighthouse blinked far out on the breakwater. It was a beautiful sight. A light rain began to fall as I contemplated Francis Drake, whose great victory over the Spanish turned the course of English history, and the history of the western world, while beneath my feet the four copper backsides of the Beatles tribute act slowly filled with rainwater.
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