Set in Stone Harry Mount
In a quiet corner of Suffolk, not far from Sudbury, lies a crucial slice of American history. A founding father of New England, John Winthrop was lord of the manor of the tiny village of Groton, before setting sail for America in 1630. Winthrop, a Puritan lawyer, spearheaded the first great influx of English immigrants before becoming the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for twelve years. His son helped to found the Connecticut Colony, and his descendants are still among the great and the good of America, including John Kerry, the Secretary of State. It was Winthrop who described his idealised vision of the new colony as a ‘city upon a hill’.
The Winthrops were big cheeses in Groton for some time before John emigrated. A monument in the church and a tomb in the graveyard recall John Winthrop’s ancestor Adam Winthrop, who died in 1562. Adam Winthrop was Master of the Clothworkers Company in London and patron of the church.
In the years since John Winthrop’s death, his American descendants handsomely endowed the church with Victorian stained glass windows in memory of the family. A short walk away is handsome Groton Place, the Winthrops’ old home, timber-framed, with a Georgianised façade. Winthrop headed to Massachusetts along with his fellow Puritans in fear of religious persecution under Charles I. It must have been a wrench to leave this lovely patch of East Anglia.