The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 10

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our 8th Stop

St. Nicholas Church

Cuddington, Buckinghamshire

This lovely nearly 1,000 year old church served as the home parish of our direct descendants and cousins from at least the the second half of the 15th Century to the early 20th Century.  The last grave of a Hollyman bears an obscured date of the early 1900s.

Below the entrance to St, Nicholas.  The church yard serves as the cemetery.  Our direct great grandparents are buried both outside and inside the church.  In the middle 1500s the status of the family in the community resulted in internment inside the facility, now the resting places long obscured by time.

The baptismal trough is from the 13th Century.  Here Holymans were welcomed into Christian life as Roman Catholics and after the Reformation in the 1500s as members of the Anglican Church of England.  Our ancestral immigrant, Christopher Hollyman of Bedfordshire arrived in Virginia in 1650 as an Anglican.

The nave and sanctuary were remodeled in Victorian times.  Try to imagine that the bones of our 16th Century direct great grandparents lay under these floors.

The superb craftsmanship of the pulpit is still evident  centuries later.





These Medieval steps lead to the tower landing offering views to the north of land that was the Holyman Farm.

Finally, above Holliman descendants from the 21st Century stand on the top of the St. Nicholas tower.  Red tile and some thatched roofs cover the residences of Cuddington.  

QUICK REMINDER FAMILY TREE BOX

John Holyman, d 1521 of Cuddington begat

John Holyman, d 1533 of Cuddington who begat

Thomas Holyman, d 1558 of Cuddington who

with Dorothy Clark begat

Christopher Holyman, d 1589 of Sherington who

with Margaret Lee begat

Thomas Hollyman, d ca. 1650 of Bedford who

with Helena Poynard begat

Christopher Hollyman, 1618-1691 of Bedford

and Virginia who begat four sons and two daughters

Next, we visit the Holyman Farm, only several hundred yards and a few English lanes from the church.