The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 6

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our Fourth Stop – St. Laud’s and the Old Rectory

 Sherington, Buckinghamshire

May 18, 2019

Fortified by lunch, our coach driver took us to Sherington, over the Bedfordshire line into Buckinghamshire.  This beautiful village is filled with lovely gardens and thatched cottages.  

It was here that by 1575, the grand parents of Christopher Hollyman, 1618-1691, lived and raised a family including Thomas Hollyman of Bedford, Bedfordshire, the father of our Virginia immigrant Christopher.  

Alice Holliman Murphy reads about the parish's program of saving wild grass and flowers.  St. Laud's is in the back ground.

These grandparents were named Christopher, 1537-1589, (guess where our Virginia Christopher obtained his name?) and Margaret Lee Hollyman, born abt 1548, death date unknown.  We went through the lychgate (below) and inspected the interior of the church.

Kindly church wardens, below, greeted us and pointed out the interior of the facility where Christopher Hollyman, Sr. served as a warden himself.  We know this as our great grandfather and another church leader complained to the bishop about the indolence of the priest. 

   

   

Left Kathy Joiner (in black) and Dr. Jim Holliman, in glasses, in the chancel of St. Laud with other Hollymans.

                                    

Above genealogist Anne Holmes explained that Christopher and Margaret Lee were born in Cuddington and Dinton, Buckinghamshire and probably moved to Sherington to look after Lee family lands.  The Lees were moving up the English social and economic ladder and the Hollymans peaked also in the 16th Century. 

Probably because of Lee connections, Christopher was made a member of Queen Elizabeth's guard and wore a Tudor uniform similar to those worn by the yeomen at the Tower of London, shown in the photograph. Try to imagine our great grandfather dressed accordingly when mustering the local militia!

The church yard at Sherington most probably holds the remains of my 9th great grandfather, Christopher, named after his grandfather, Christopher Clark of Cuddington, Buckinghamshire. 

Below, nine to eleven generations later the immediate descendants of Walter O. Holliman, 1927 - 2003, gather at St. Laud's on a chilly day in May 2019. 

Before we left Sherington, we stopped at the Old Rectory, no longer where the priest lives and now privately owed.  This 'Old Rectory' was constructed in 1711.  On this site in an earlier rectory, Christopher and Margaret raised Thomas Hollyman, the father of the Christopher who migrated to Virginia in 1650.  Evidently the Hollymans assumed possession of the rectory when the bishop dismissed the errant priest who Christopher, d 1589, had complained about.  Hmmmm.....

There was one more stop on May 18th, the school where Thomas Hollyman, abt. 1581 - abt 1650 attended.

When We Were English, Part LV

by Glenn N. Holliman

Holymans in the First Elizabethan Age....

In the last post, we closed the Will of Thomas Holyman who died in 1558, the year that Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne of England.  The eldest son, Richard Holyman, inherited the lion's share of the large family estate.  It is my thesis that this Richard, who died in 1603, was a great uncle (many times over) of the Holymans who migrated to Virginia in 1650.

English historian A. H. Dodd in his 1961 work captured the status of country families such as the emerging Holyman family of Cuddington, Buckinghamshire.  Thomas Holyman proclaimed himself a yeoman, unlike his father and grandfather (John who died in 1533 and John who died in 1522) who described themselves as husbandmen, a lower social status.

Yeomanry was the rural middle class, and often those in this social class were in a state of economic flux.  Yeomanry was a half-way house to gentility.  As a member of the gentry, a male was no longer addressed as 'goodman' but rather 'master'.  From what we know of our Richard Holyman, Christopher's oldest brother, he moved to the 'gentry' class.

Evidence of this?  He had a home in London as well as his 'manor' house in Cuddington, and lands in other parts of Buckinghamshire. The web site 'The Parishes of Stone Hundred - Cuddington, A History of the County of Buckinghamshire'  reveals that parts of 'the manor of Cuddington' came into his possession.  Later in a lawsuit, he and another Richard Holyman, possibly his son, defended their manorial rights in court.

Richard Holyman also had the rights to the local watermill and leased it for 21 years to Thomas Tyringham in 1582.    Even after the sale of the mill along the Great Thames, a tributary to the the Thames River, the Holymans retained their right to a free fishery.  Below the entrance to the site of the old water mill in England. Photograph taken April 2012.

 

 



The Tyringhams were themselves a prominent Cuddington family who also had interests in other parts of Buckinghamshire.  The Tyringham Hall still stands in Cuddington, only a long stone's throw from the present Holyman farm.  Below, in a November afternoon sun in 2012, the house remains a lovely piece of Stuart era architecture. 

Further evidence of the rise of this branch of the Holyman family was the marriage of Richard's brother, the landless Christopher Holyman who would die in December 1588.  This Christopher would marry into a family that was on the rise socially and economically, the Lees of Buckinghamshire.  

And Christopher will leave Cuddington for Sherington, and live not far from a Tyringham property in northern Buckinghamshire.  Did Christopher, one of the many sons of Thomas Holyman, establish some type of economic relationship with his Cuddington neighbors whose family had relations in Sherington?  We do not know but it is an intriguing thought that might explain why Christopher removed himself to a community, 35 miles or so from Cuddington and close to another shire - Bedford.

And from Bedford, Bedfordshire would come Christopher and Judith Holyman who emigrated to Virginia in 1650!

Below, located five or so miles from Sherington is the Tyringham House as it appeared in 2011.  This current hall reflects the wealth of the Tyringham family in previous centuries.  Today, the house and land are in the possession of another 21st Century family.

In the next post, we return our attention to Christopher, the person whom I believe is my generation's 9th great grandfather.


Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .

Let's save the past for the future! If you have photographs, letters, memorabilia or research you wish to share, please contact me directly at glennhistory@gmail.com. Several of us have an on-going program of scanning and preserving Holyman and related family records. Don't just let family's genealogical work or photographs languish unread and deteriorating in an attic. Write us please and tell us of your items. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you. - GNH

 

When We Were English, Part XVIIL

by Glenn N. Holliman 

RETURN TO ENGLAND, Part 1

 On two occasions in 2012, I had the opportunity to travel to England to research further my Holyman family roots.  During this time I was assisted by family historian Peter Smith of Bedfordshire and professional genealogist Anne Holmes of Buckinghamshire.

Their research and my own examinations of original source materials continue to deepen my understanding of my ancestral families before the immigration of Christopher Holyman and his sister to Virginia in 1650.

 In this space for several years, I have been writing of my findings, inviting the reader into my search to discover the roots of the Hollimans.  Many of you have been 'walking' with me.  If one desires to review earlier writings, please go to the 'Archives' section of this home page or just click over the name of a person or location in "Labels' portion of the home page.

 

 

Above, Glenn Holliman, left, and right, genealogist Anne Holmes of Buckinghamshire, England examine Holyman records of the 16th Century in the archives in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom in November 2012. 

Briefly what new findings do I have to report.

1. Thanks to the research of Anne Holmes, the scenario of the Holyman family from John Holyman, d 1521 in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire to his great grandson, Christopher Holyman, d 1588 in Sherington, Buckinghamshire appears solid.  This thesis is backed up by translated wills and parish records which will be examined in future articles.

 2. The thesis that I have been promoting that Christopher Holyman of Sherington (d 1588) is the father of Thomas Holyman of Bedford and the grandfather of our Christopher Holyman (d 1691) in Ile of Wight, Virginia is not disproved and continues to be a very plausible explanation of lineage. 

 3. Thanks to Anne Holmes we know Thomas of Bedford lived near St. Mary's Parish on Caldwell Street, which even today runs in front of the church.  His wife, Eleanor Holyman, died in 1553 and is buried in that churchyard cemetery.

 4. A fascinating piece of information is that Thomas Holyman was a shoemaker, a cordwainer if you will!  While an honorable profession, this seems a comedown on the social ladder for the Holymans of Cuddington who were substantial landowners just a half century earlier.  However, he did own the Blue Boar Inn lease which he sold for 40 pds in 1640, a tidy sum in that era.  Let's call him a craftsman and a businessman.

Below, the bridge connects then north side of the Great River Ouse in Bedford to the south side.  Behind the high rise hotel on the left stands St. Mary's parish church and Caldwell Street, the lane (then) that housed the residence and business (es) of Thomas Holyman (b bef. 1587 - d bet. 1646-1652).

 5. Anne will continue to investigate the Bedford records to add context to our family story.  As yet, we have not found burial records for Thomas and Eleanor's children named Christopher and Judith (we have of their other children) thus strengthening the argument that the Christopher who arrived in Virginia in 1650 and died there in 1691 is indeed from Bedford, Bedfordshire, England.

We will follow the story wherever additional research may lead!

Much more in the next postings...