Mullins Coffee Shop

General information

About Mullins House…
Mullins House takes its name from former Dorking resident, William Mullins, a local shoemaker and Pilgrim Father, who travelled to America on the Mayflower in 1620. The building dates from between 1568 and 1610 and is the only example of a Pilgrim Father’s home still in existence.
Mullins was born in Dorking in 1572 to parents John and Joan and it seems became a prominent member of the local community, not only running a successful shoe making business but being elected as tithingman for the Eastborough neighbourhood of Dorking, effectively acting as a spokesman for a group of ten families in the area.
William Mullins purchased Mullins House on 28th December 1612 with a very large mortgage of 23 shillings a year. However, he did not settle there for long and only 7 years later, he had sold his property to local leather dresser Ephraim Bothell for a sum of £280, in preparation for his journey to America. It is not certain what prompted Mullins, at nearly 50 years old, to decide to make the perilous journey overseas. His business was seemingly a successful one as he made one of the larger investments in the Adventurers’ company. Like many of the other Pilgrim Fathers travelling from England the decision could, therefore have been prompted by a desire for profit and expansion in the New World. Although he was not a religious separatist like those travelling on the Mayflower from Holland, there is also evidence to suggest that Mullins was called before the Privy Council in 1616 and held there for a time. This imprisonment could have been related to the religious troubles taking place in England during this period and may also have provided the motivation to embark on a new life in America, though this cannot be proven.
Whatever his reasons, on 16th September 1620 William Mullins, along with his wife Alice, youngest children Priscilla and Joseph and around 100 other Pilgrims, boarded the Mayflower and set sail for a new life in the New World. The Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower endured months of treacherous seas damaging their ship, cramped conditions and even the deaths of two of their number on the journey west, eventually reaching America in the winter of 1620. However, although they survived the difficult journey, the new life William Mullins sought for his family was not to go smoothly and William died just months after their arrival, on 21st January 1621, followed soon after by his wife Alice and son Joseph. William Mullins will was sailed back to England on the Mayflower and is the only known will of a Mayflower passenger to die in that first winter still in existence. Mullins’ one surviving daughter, Priscilla, who travelled across with him married the Mayflower’s cooper, John Alden, and had ten children. Priscilla is heralded and one of the founders of the United States of America, having notable descendants including President John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams, Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles and the poet Henry Wordsworth Longfellow.
The blue plaque next to the door of Mullins Coffee Shop is an indication of the historical significance of this building, commemorating the life of the humble local shoemaker who would unknowingly contribute to the founding of a nation.