Hi, my name is Jacqueline LaMar. I am on a mission to save Scrooby! Scrooby Manor is a 12-acre site in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the birthplace of Mayflower passengers William Brewster and Susanna (Jackson) White Winslow. The current owners want to sell it and retire. A developer has expressed interest. Only five acres, including the existing manor house and dovecote (a chicken coop for doves), are "listed." The Archbishops of York were on this Scrooby Manor site before the year 1000. Henry VIII purchased it for a deer park. The entire manor layout used to look like a rectangle of brick buildings with an internal courtyard. Only one house remains (along with a lot of more recent outbuildings). There are other foundations on the property, and likely ancient burial sites. However, if successful, the local developer plans to build a gated community of executive-style homes. I hope descendants of Mayflower passengers William and Mary Brewster, Susanna Jackson, William White, and Edward Winslow -- and others dedicated to historic preservation -- will donate to this GoFundMe account to purchase, preserve, restore, and manage the Scrooby Manor Estate. Like George Washington's Mount Vernon, let's protect the buildings as well as the surrounding land, rather than the way Gainsborough Old Hall, down the road from Scrooby, a lovely medieval manor house, is surrounded on all four sides by residential development. The General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD) cannot take on this project itself, so with advice, guidance, and encouragement thus far from Sue Allan, Caleb Johnson, Jennifer Baker, and others, I am working to create a separate tax-exempt organization for it: Scrooby Manor Foundation. I had an EIN approved as a charitable organization but lack approval from the IRS as a 501(c) (3) for donations to be tax deductible.

The price is negotiable at 2M UK pounds, about $2,630,000. We need a 10% down payment, likely $200,000 or more, plus funds for utilities, insurance, and other costs. If we are unsuccessful in raising sufficient funds to purchase Scrooby Manor, I will donate the funds, less fees, to the Mayflower Meetinghouse in Plymouth, MA; TheMayflowerSociety.org.

It's not visible (for the matter of fees), but I made the first donation of $500 to this significant, time-sensitive cause. My only expenditure is $182 to purchase Internet addresses, so that someone else doesn't scoop them up. Jackie

Taken on 8 Jan 2022, this photo shows the GSMD group visiting Scrooby Manor, including an inside tour, graciously provided by the owners.

Courtesy of Sue Allan, who has been the Historian of Scrooby Manor since 2012.

Courtesy of Sue Allan, author of numerous non-fiction books on the Mayflower families published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (American.Ancestors.org), including In Search of Scrooby Manor, In Search of William Brewster: The Making of a Pilgrim, In Search of Mayflower Pilgrim Susanna White-Winslow, and my favorite, In the Shadow of Men (about the women).

Best friends: Cherie Lawson, Lisa Shoemaker, Vicki Campbell, and me.