The Pilgrim Fathers Memorial is located on the north bank of The Haven

The Haven, Boston

The Haven is the tidal river of the Port of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. It provides access for shipping between Boston Deeps in The Wash and the town, particularly, the dock. It also serves as the outfall into the sea, of the River Witham and of several major land drains of the northern Fens...

 at the site of the former Scotia Creek, Fishtoft

Fishtoft

Fishtoft is one of eighteen parishes which, together with Boston, form the Borough of Boston in the county of Lincolnshire, England. Local government has been arranged in this way since the reorganization of 1 April 1974, which resulted from the Local Government Act 1972...

, seaward of Boston

Boston, Lincolnshire

Boston is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district and had a total population of 55,750 at the 2001 census...

 in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and consists of a small granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 obelisk mounted on a granite block. It commemorates the attempt at finding religious freedom in September, 1607 by the Scrooby Congregation

Scrooby Congregation

The Scrooby Congregation were English Protestant separatists who lived near Scrooby, Nottinghamshire. Starting in 1607/8 the Congregation emigrated to Holland in search of the freedom to worship as they chose...

, a group of English Separatist Protestants who left for Holland

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. They were precursors of the Pilgrims who later crossed the Atlantic to New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

.

Connection to the Pilgrim Fathers

The men from Scrooby

Scrooby

Scrooby is a small village, on the River Ryton and near Bawtry, in the northern part of the English county of Nottinghamshire. At the time of the 2001 census it had a population of 329. Until 1766, it was on the Great North Road so became a stopping-off point for numerous important figures...

, Nottinghamshire, chartered a Dutch vessel to transport them to the Netherlands in 1607, but the attempt was thwarted when the captain betrayed them to the local authorities. They were arrested and taken by boat to attend a hearing by the magistrates in the Boston Guildhall

Guildhall Museum

The ancient Boston Guildhall of St Mary's Guild in Boston, Lincolnshire, England was built in the 1390's. It was previously thought to have been built in 1450, but during its recent restoration and analysis of the roof timbers, experts have dated the building much earlier...

, and they were imprisoned in the cells there for about a month.

In 1608, after their release, they made a second, this time successful, attempt from the Humber

Humber

The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...

 first arriving in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. The Scrooby congregation moved to Leiden in 1609, before setting sail in 1620 for the New World

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 via Southampton and Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

.

The memorial

The memorial was erected by the former Boston Borough Council

Boston (borough)

Boston is a local government district with borough status in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in the town of Boston. It lies around N53°0'0" W0°0'0"....

 in 1957, on the 350th anniversary of the event. The work was carried out by Leake's Masonry. The ceremony was attended by several members of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, who made a donation towards the cost of the monument. Its design is a tapering shaft rising from a base-block, intended to symbolise the urge which drove a small band of men and women to leave their country and kinsfolk for conscience's sake. The material used typifies by its strength the power and stability of their faith.

The inscription on the front of the memorial reads:

"Near this place in September 1607 those later known as "The Pilgrim Fathers" made their first attempt to find religious freedom across the seas. Erected 1957"

There is also a Pilgrim Fathers Memorial in Southampton.