One Small Candle

Monday 9th May, 2016|Category: News

History Alive! One Small Candle is a non-profit community interest group focussed on bringing the Mayflower – Pilgrims history alive around Plymouth’s Barbican and the historic Mayflower Steps

With our Make a Difference for Mayflower 400 Campaign launching in March, we can see the excitement around 2020 and the potential for Plymouth, with this in mind we were keen to do a piece about this lovely group of people who celebrate the history of our great city.

A little background for those of you who haven’t heard of One Small Candle…pilgrim DoC FX22040

“One Small Candle started out as an idea by imaginative local David Saunders. David and his wife Elizabeth returned to Plymouth after 15 years in the USA and thought more could be made of everything around the Mayflower Steps.”

We were able to have a chat with David who is the main Pilgrim, David has studied everything about the people that would become “the Pilgrims”. He has always been fascinated by the Mayflower story and is always happy to share his knowledge… in Pilgrim costume of course!

“We are just a small group of people who want to share the fascinating history of this place with passers-by and people who are interested.  There is so much people miss around the Mayflower steps, we are there to point it out and bring the past to life.

We aim to provide non-boring, quirky tours that show people where Pilgrims stayed, played and the goings on at the time. I ask people to stand and close their eyes, imagine what it would be like to walk down this street while chamber pot contents are being thrown out of the windows above you. There was a lot of skulduggery during that time (some of which is just too scandalous to write on this blog don’t you know! – best go down and ask the pilgrims yourself) people only seem to want to know about the dark side of our history, where the mass hangings happened for example, after all they are the most exciting bits!”

This humble group, who are flattered when people say thank you and embarrassed when they get a round of applause, simply do what they do because they love it.

We were even lucky enough to have a personal visit last year when the group toured the city spreading the word about what they do.

This summer why not track them down and learn about the history of our amazing city – there is so much to take in and their passion and knowledge will leave you running to the library to find out more. You’ll be experts in no time!

You can find out more about One Small Candle via their Website, Facebook and Twitter. Enjoy!

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