In the Footsteps of the Pilgrim Fathers, Leiden
Courtyard of the Sint-Pieterskerk.
To touch base with those courageous but humble Pilgrim Fathers, who lived in Leiden between 1609 and 1620, pick up the VVV brochure A Pilgrimage Through Leiden: A Walk in the Footsteps of the Pilgrim Fathers. The walk starts at the Lodewijkskerk (Louis Church), which was used as a meeting-place by the cloth guild. William Bradford, who became the governor of New Plymouth, was a member of this guild.
The walk takes you past the Groenehuis (Green House) on William Brewstersteeg, where in an attached printing shop William Brewster's and Thomas Brewer's Pilgrim Press published the religious views that so angered King James and the Church of England.
Plaques at the brick Sint-Pieterskerk (St. Peter's Church), in a small square off Kloksteeg, memorialize the Pilgrims, who worshiped here and who lived in its shadow. Special Thanksgiving Day services are held each year in honor of the little band of refugees.
An almshouse, the Jean Pesijnhofje, now occupies the restored Groene Port (Green Door) house in Kloksteeg in which Rev. John Robinson and 21 Pilgrim families lived. Robinson was forced to stay behind because of illness and is buried in the church. The almshouse is named for Jean Pesijn, a Belgian Protestant who joined the Leiden community along with his wife Marie de la Noye, and whose son Philip would sail for North America in 1621, where his surname would in time contract to Delano.
On July 21, 1620, the 66 Pilgrims who were leaving boarded barges at Rapenburg Quay for the trip by canal from Leiden to the harbor of Delft, now Delfshaven in Rotterdam. From there they sailed on the Speedwell for England, where the Mayflower awaited them.
Text © Frommer's Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, 9th ed..
