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.