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1844 Map of south-west Suffolk (part) |
Mary (Ginn) Hammond lived all her adult life in and around Cowlinge and Lidgate in south-west Suffolk, England. The villages lie close to the border with Cambridgeshire to the west, about 7 miles (11km) south-east of the market town of Newmarket and 10 miles (16km) south-west of the cathedral town of Bury St Edmunds. On the map (above) Lidgate is near the centre of the image, with Cowlinge (marked as 'Cowling') just below it; Newmarket lies towards the 11 o'clock position and Bury St Edmunds towards the 1 o'clock position. However, Mary's origins are obscure; she was said to be 48 years old when she died in 1785, and thus was born about 1737, but we currently (2024) have no reliable historical record of her baptism. The fact that she married in Cowlinge suggests that her family was from that parish. (See Research notes.)
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St Mary's Church, Lidgate |
Mary married the widower Philip Hammond of Lidgate on 14 December 1758 at the parish church of Cowlinge when she was about 21 years old. [1] He was a collar maker who had previously married Martha Hockley in 1754; she had died in February 1758 when giving birth to their daughter, also called Martha. [2] Mary and Philip went on to have three children, all baptised at Lidgate St Mary: Mary (1762), Philip (1765) and John (1771, and buried a month later).
The parish church of Lidgate St Mary (above) lies close to the ruins of a 12th century castle and on top of a hill that overlooks the village and the surrounding rather flat, largely agricultural countryside. The church was constructed mainly in the 13th and 14th centuries, with the walls of the nave perhaps having been part of the castle's chapel. [3] A document submitted on 10 April 1676 to the local bishop by the churchwardens there stated that there were 223 communicants in the parish, no "Popish recusants [Roman Catholics] and no dissenters [Anglican non-conformists]". [4] In 1855 the parish had 494 inhabitants and 1737 acres of land; there was a transport service ('carrier') to Newmarket every Tuesday. [5]
Philip died in 1777 in Lidgate, when his two surviving children were only 15 and 12 years old; he was buried on 27 February that year in the parish churchyard. [6] His widow Mary did not re-marry; she outlived him by another eight years before dying in 1785 in Lidgate. She was buried on 29 June that year after a ceremony at the parish church. [7]
This week's featured connections are Redheads: Mary is 24 degrees from Catherine of Aragón, 27 degrees from Clara Bow, 22 degrees from Julia Gillard, 20 degrees from Nancy Hart, 21 degrees from Rutherford Hayes, 25 degrees from Rita Hayworth, 24 degrees from Leonard Kelly, 26 degrees from Rose Leslie, 27 degrees from Damian Lewis, 25 degrees from Maureen O'Hara, 30 degrees from Jopie Schaft and 40 degrees from Eirik Thorvaldsson on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
G > Ginn | H > Hammond > Mary (Ginn) Hammond
Categories: Lidgate, Suffolk | Cowlinge, Suffolk