Scrooby: The Yorkshire border village with a history of royal visitors and a grisly murder

Royalty and other significant figures have had links with the area.

King John was at Scrooby Manor House August 28-30, 1212. During the first decade of the following century, Scrooby’s first recorded parish priest, was accused of ‘lack of self-restraint’ with three women.

Two centuries later, Margaret Tudor, Henry VII’s eldest daughter stopped over at Scrooby on her way to Scotland before becoming the second wife of James IV.

Having fallen out of favour, Cardinal Wolsey arrived at Scrooby Manor House in 1530 and spent September at the location.

Then, arguably the most important occurrence was on August 16-17, 1541 when Henry VIII stopped at the property.

Scrooby is frequently celebrated for its links with William Brewster (born Scrooby c. 1560), a leader of the Pilgrim Fathers.

His father, also called William, was Bailiff of the Manor of Scrooby in 1575 and also ‘Master of the Queen’s Postes’.

At the beginning of December 1580, William Jnr attended Peterhouse College, Cambridge, as a pensioner (a student who paid for his lodgings).

From around 1583-88 he was in the service of William Davison, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I, and her representative in the Netherlands in 1585.

After William Snr’s death in 1590, his son took up the position of Master of the Postes initially earning 8p a day.

In the early years of the 17th century, William’s home, Scrooby Manor house became the meeting place for the Separatist church.

Members of this organisation included William Bradford baptised at the Austerfield church short distance away.

Brewster spent a short time in prison in 1608 but later moved to Amsterdam and in time to Leyden.

By 1620, he was aboard the Mayflower ship leading the group, becoming known as the Pilgrim Fathers, heading for America.

They were founders of the Plymouth Colony in New England. William Bradford who travelled with Brewster eventually became the colony’s governor. William Brewster died during April 1644.

The Great North Road once ran through the centre of Scrooby village but a toll road was opened in 1766 and skirted the village on the western side. It is presently the A638 thoroughfare.

The Scrooby murder of 1779 hit the headlines across many newspapers.

North Leverton shepherd, John Spencer slaughtered Scrooby toll bar keeper William Yeadon and his mother, Mary, at the toll house with a hedge stake. Following a trial at Nottingham, Spencer was executed there.

Afterwards his body was hung in chains on a gibbet constructed close to where the crime was committed. The hedge stake was fixed in his right hand pointing to the toll house.

Scrooby’s surviving buildings have fascinating histories. The Manor house where many of the aforementioned Royalty and others stayed, once embraced about six and a half acres and had a moat.

A building there may be researched to 1207.

Antiquary, John Leland (c.1503-1552) often described as ‘the father of English local history’, visited the building in 1541 and commented: ‘a great manor place. And [be]longing to the Archbishop of York; builded in two courts, where of the first is very ample and all builded of timber, saving the front of the house and that is of brick, to which you ascend by stone steps’.

Around 1636-7 following a demolition order granted by Charles I, the Manor house and outbuildings were cleared.

A section of one wing of the structure survived and about 1750 was converted to a farmhouse. This building may be observed today.

Scrooby parish church is dedicated to St Wilfrid, an Archbishop of York who died in 709. References to a Scrooby church hark back to 1177-81, though no traces may be found in the present structure.

The tower with its perpendicular-style west window is from the early 15th century; the south aisle with Tudor style windows is from the 16th century.

The church was struck by lightning on Sunday afternoon August 14, 1831.

One newspaper reported: ‘Th injury which the spire has sustained is very considerable…Providentially the service was over when the church was struck, else in all probability many lives would have been lost. There were, however, two men in the churchyard at the time; one of them was dashed to the earth, but we are glad to learn that he recovered shortly afterwards’.

A complete restoration of the building occurred in 1864.

The London Christian Times, August 17, of that year reported that the reopening of the building took place five days earlier, adding: ‘The recent restoration includes a new pulpit of Bath stone panelled, two compartments of which are elegantly carved…The front is situated on an elevated base from whence springs an octagonal shaft supporting the bowls’.

Scrooby village once had two pubs – the George and Dragon and the Saracens’ Head, the latter having a datestone 1771.

An article from February 7, 1969 informed that the ‘800-year-old’ George and Dragon had closed and was for sale.

A spokesperson for John Smiths Tadcaster brewers, who owned the public house and also the Pilgrim Fathers (formerly the Saracen’s Head), said: ‘We decided to improve one of our premises at Scrooby and the Pilgrim Fathers lent itself better to improvements than the George and Dragon’.

A mile south of Scrooby village is a building known as Scrooby Top House, a former posting house in the coaching era.

The property of 5-bays and three storeys was also known as Scrooby Inn and remained licensed until 1821.

Tom Bradley in The Old Coaching Days in Yorkshire (1889) mentions: ‘[T]he one time Old Scrooby Inn, long ago converted into a pretty extensive farmstead’.

Scrooby Methodist Chapel at the south end of Chapel Lane was erected with a hipped roof in 1829.

The mywesleyanmethodists website states that in 1839, the village saw a ‘gracious revival in the work of God which boosted its numbers. It continues that the building was well used up until the late 1900s ‘although it was 140 years before it saw its first wedding’.

The Scrooby Character Assessment of 2018, notes that in 2008 the structure was condemned for public access after which the chapel was de-consecrated and the building vacated. It has since been converted to a private dwelling.

Scrooby railway station on Great Northern Railway Company’s line between Retford and Doncaster opened in September 1849.

It comprised two platforms, booking office, waiting room, stationmaster’s house and signal box.

On Saturday June 17, 1876, the Coroner (Chas S. Burnaby) held an inquest at the Saracens Head, Scrooby to inquire into the death of signalman John Morrish who was run over and killed in the area the previous day.

According to an account, he was knocked down by the ‘Scotch Express’ consisting of 15 coaches.

Close by were railway water troughs from c.1903 until 1969. The station closed in 1931 and converted to a private residence.

Noted postcard photographer, Edgar Leonard Scrivens, was active in Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire between c.1905 to 1940.

He took a batch of pictures in Scrooby and they capture admirably for former rural atmosphere of the place. One of the photographs shows a former water mill – Monks Mill - on the old course of the Ryton.

There is stonework within the structure dating to the 17th century. It utilised the power of water to grind corn and this continued until WWII.

Falling derelict, the mill underwent restoration in the 1950s to transform into a private house. Other postcards include the old Vicarage built to house a resident curate probably in the 1590s.

In 2020, many places at home and abroad celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower sailing to America. Staged were a bundle of events, exhibitions, productions and projects.

Further reading Malcolm Dolby Scrooby Home of William Brewster Pilgrim Father c.1566-1644 Village Guide (1991).