Cawsand Congregational Church

Welcome to Cawsand Congregational Church : Rev. Jill Murray   A warm welcome to you all at  Cawsand Congregational Church.     It raises a smile that our Church, first built on the very edge of the sea front here some hundreds of years ago, should be hosting these musical plays tonight. This is especially so for the first performance which tells some of the story of a passenger family who were on the Mayflower sailing ship journeying from Plymouth to America in September 1620 and arriving in the waters of the New World on the 11th November the same year. The Mayflower was carrying a group of separatists, the Pilgrim Fathers as they have become known. This group had broken away from the mainstream Church of England to seek a new start, a long way from home. Although parted by four centuries, we in this church share something with those intrepid folk from four centuries ago. They wanted to run their own more simple church services and gatherings in humble surroundings, in the same way as the chapel churches and congregations do to this day.   The site on which you are situated this evening would have witnessed the small, square masted, and very cramped Mayflower as it made its way west from Plymouth. Plymouth was then a small town built around the Barbican. The pilgrims would have seen sights familiar to us today as they sailed out to sea; the pilchard cellars along the rocks, the tiny dwellings scattered around Kingsand and Cawsand As you enjoy tonight's performances, do please spare a thought for the importance of where you are — we are together in the last remaining Congregational Church in the entire County of Cornwall. It is a treasure that we must all in whatever way we can keep for the present and future generations. Why not support us sometimes on Tuesday mornings at our regular coffee mornings ... and if you come along for a Sunday service, which is held every two weeks, there are often superior biscuits provided with your tea afterwards!