The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 3

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our Second Stop – St. Mary’s Parish,
The 17th Century Church of the Thomas Hollyman Family

Now Re-purposed as  the Albion Archaeology Centre

Bedford, Bedfordshire

May 18, 2019

Approximately 3/4ths mile south of St. Peters de Merton, across the River Ouse, is St. Mary’s Church which is one of the oldest and most beautiful buildings in Bedford.  Even before the 1066 Norman Conquest there was a church on this spot.  The four-stage tower has been a major landmark to travelers for more than one thousand years.

It may have been founded by King Alfred the Great’s son, Edward the Elder, circa 915, when Bedford was a key stronghold in the Viking wars.  For fifty generations it was the center of community life. Tens of thousands of town folk were baptized, married and buried here, including our Hollyman families.  

  

In the 12^th Century a hermit took up residence in the Church for whom King Henry II made a grant of a penny a day for food which was passed to the religious recluse under his cell door.

Among those resting here are our Hollyman descendants, Thomas and Helena Poynard Holliman, and undoubtedly several of their children.  Baptized here was Christopher Hollyman [1618-1691], the immigrant ancestor of most American Hollimans.

Who were the children of Thomas and Helena Hollyman?

 

Genealogist Anne Holmes provides this information:

John Holliman, 1610-1645

Ellenora Holiman, 1612-1612

Jone or Jane Holliman, 1613-?, m. Barnabas Crash in 1631

Thomas Hollyman, 1616-?

Christopher Hollyman, 1618-1691 (d. in Virginia)

Judith Holliman, 1621-? (d. in Virginia)

Eleanor Hollyman, 1623-?

Stephen Hollyman, 1625-? (Member of John Bunyan’s Meeting House)

Mary Holyman, 1628-?

All the children were baptized at St. Mary’s and records indicate Ellenora and John are buried in the church cemetery.  Eight children grew to adulthood, unusual for the time when infant and childhood deaths were common.

Below, across from the now Albion Centre (St. Mary’s Church) on Cauldwell Street is a digital internet company, as a representation of 21^st Century as one can get. The Blue Boar Inn would have stood where the two buildings meet.  This is where Christopher Hollyman, our American founder, first saw the light of day.

In the 1800s, Cauldwell Street looked as drawn below.  St. Mary's Parish is at the end on the street.  On the right would have stood the Blue Boar Inn, where now late 20th Century buildings, as pictured above, fill the block.

On this site in 1618, Christopher Hollyman was born at a tavern and inn known as the Blue Boar. 

He was the fifth child and third son of Thomas and Helena, and along with his sister Judith he would leave Bedford at age 32 and immigrate to America. 

For a detailed family tree of the Hollymans of England (and tens of thousands of other Hollymans and associated families) visit the Ancestry.com site: Hollyman Tree, created and maintained by Jeanette Holiman Stewart.  Jeanette has entered over 52,000 Hollyman names (many spellings) and works closely with Anne Holmes to fine tune our English ancestry.  Jeanette’s email address is Htreekeeper@gmail.com.

Next blog, more on St. Mary's, the Albion Centre, Thomas Hollyman, his life, and the forces that may have led to his son, Christopher, immigrating to American in 1650.