Mayflower Steps
Mayflower Steps
3.5
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A plaque beside these steps commemorates Provincetown as the first landing spot for the Pilgrims in the New World.
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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.
Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.
Popular mentions
3.5
242 reviews
Excellent
61
Very good
82
Average
72
Poor
22
Terrible
5
Kay H
Exeter, UK15 contributions
Mar 2020
Take a moment to read the story of the mayflower steps. Find out where the locals think the mayflower steps may actually really be, look out of the waters and take in the history of the place. Can you see the fort? Mount Batton? Jenny Cliff?
Written April 19, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Big_Jeff_Leo
St Helens, UK22,606 contributions
Mar 2020
It certainly is a historic place. There are several plaques that explain the significance of this place and this just goes to open up your imagination and what the Pilgrim Fathers actually achieved. Of course 400th Anniversary celebrations in 2020. Go into the nearby pub and you will find a list of the Pilgrim fathers in the doorway.
Written March 20, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
chammp
Modbury, UK1,330 contributions
Dec 2011 • Friends
If you're in Plymouth it's worth going to the Barbican area, and if you're on the Barbican then it's worth going to the Mayflower steps. They're nothing overwhelming, but from them you can go on boat trips or simply absorb the history around you.
Written January 1, 2012
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Chris D
United kingdom224 contributions
Apr 2012 • Friends
As all locals know but few Americans get told, these are NOT the steps from which the 'Pilgrims' left but an early twentieth century commemorative stucture. As explained in other reviews the embarkation point was probabably in or near the site of a nearby pub. If ill informed north americans chose to fantasise over a bogus icon then it is probably better not to put them straight. All grist to the tourist trade mill.
Written April 28, 2012
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
spectrum54
Saltash, Cornwall35 contributions
Feb 2012
Little more than concrete steps. American tourists come to see part of their history and are always disappointed
Written April 29, 2012
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
plymouth
Plymouth, Devon 1,384 contributions
Dec 2011 • Family
My understanding is that this is not quite where embarkation occurred but it doesn't really matter. Just imagine yourself back four hundred years... plus The Barbican is such an interesting place, anyway.
Written December 30, 2011
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Fluffsmum1
Tiverton, UK110 contributions
Dec 2010
When you go to the Mayflower steps not only are the steps themselves very interesting but they are also close to many other interesting sites as well
Sutton Lighthouse only about 10 mins walk away.
Boat trips from there up the river and pass the dockyard amongst other things.
A very interesting explanation from the captain as we travel.
An historic bus travels from there some days showing you round the historic areas in Plymouth and gives you a talk and shows a video of the past at these places while travelling.
When you are walking up into town from the Barbican if you do not take a straight route you can come across some very unusual places on your way.
Sutton Lighthouse only about 10 mins walk away.
Boat trips from there up the river and pass the dockyard amongst other things.
A very interesting explanation from the captain as we travel.
An historic bus travels from there some days showing you round the historic areas in Plymouth and gives you a talk and shows a video of the past at these places while travelling.
When you are walking up into town from the Barbican if you do not take a straight route you can come across some very unusual places on your way.
Written April 4, 2011
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Crow M
Devon268 contributions
Jul 2012 • Family
All Americans should be warned before they come that these steps are not the genuine embarkation point. This pier was not here when the Mayflower set off again after repairs. The rather shabby steps were built with the twee classical memorial in the 1920s because there was then nothing else to mark the event. There is some questionable but sincere history to suggest that there are a few steps in the basement of the nearby now Admiral McBride public house which it is thought might be part of stone seventeenth century waterside stairs. No one knows whether the Mayflower was beached for repair or whether she was brought alongside in the then tidal harbour or whether she was moored some little distance from the beach/quays. The symbolism of the much repaired commemorative fixtures are pretty poor and unimpressive. The local council seem to have to be shamed into occasional repairs and tweaking of the ninety year old feature rather than thinking about the true history and of some more honest and fitting way of marking the link with the brave and radical religious dissenter emigrants.
Written July 8, 2012
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Jannerbloke
Plymouth, UK13,675 contributions
Emphatically not where the 'Pilgrims' eventually left from after calling into an inhospitable Plymouth for unavoidable and vital repairs. It is generally but not absolutely agreed that they re-embarked from a spot roughly under, maybe inside, the ladies' lavatory of what is now the Admiral McBride public house some 50-75m westward. The old houses and watch house have long since been cleared and the present pier leading to the late twentieth century lock gates is not much more than hundred years old. Plymouth milks the Pilgrim connection despite the clearly accepted history that the non conformists and dissenters were mostly from the east coast and north and had little or nothing in common with Plymothians. But.... Americans come in their coachloads. They are welcome as is their spending power. Lets hope they do not expect to see too much by way of original or old buildings and that their tour guides are able to give them enough accurate history for them to pick up and understand the true events, their context and consequences.
Written September 4, 2010
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Liz M
Plymouth, UK156 contributions
Apr 2012
An interesting piece of history, but there is very little to help oner commune with the past.
Written May 22, 2012
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Are these the steps from which the 'Pilgrims' left or were they built in the late nineteenth century?
Written November 25, 2015
No the quay was substantially developed over the last 400 years the real steps were roughly where the admiral mcbride pub is about 50 meters away
Written November 4, 2016
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