Lower Holloway, Middlesex Genealogy

Guide to Lower Holloway, Middlesex ancestry, family history, and genealogy: Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
HOLLOWAY, a district, in the parish of Islington, Finsbury division of the hundred of Ossulstone, county of Middlesex, 3 miles N from London. There are places of worship for Independents, Wesleyans and Scottish Presbyterians.

Holloway Chapel of Ease (Islington) was built and established in the year 1814 and lies within the civil parish of St Mary Islington, Middlesex (which see). By about 1885, this chapel of ease was one of 13 such chapels built in the town. These chapels were:
 * St John the Evangelist,Pemberton Gardens Upper Holloway - 1828
 * St Mary Magdalene, Holloway Road- 1839
 * St James Victoria Road - 1839
 * St Mark, Holloway - 1854
 * St Luke Penn Road, West Holloway - 1856
 * St Barnabas, Holloway - 1866
 * St George Holloway - 1867
 * St David, West Holloway - 1869
 * St Paul, Kingsdown Road, Upper Holloway - 1870
 * St Anne, Holloway - 1871
 * St Stephen, Upper Holloway - 1880
 * All Saints, Upper Holloway - 1885

Non-conformist churches included:
 * A Wesleyan Methodist chapel in 1866
 * An Independent chapel was built in 1867
 * A New Methodist chapel, in 1867
 * A Roman Catholic chapel was founded in 1869
 * And several additional dissenting chapels having been built here.

"Lower Holloway. The junction of Hornsey and Holloway roads was known as Ring Cross by 1494, and had early settlement. Lower or Nether Holloway was recorded in 1553. The only mediaeval dwelling known to have existed away from the high road was called Cutlers in 1373 and was probably the site of Copenhagen House, so named by 1695. A house in 'Maid Lane' inhabited by Stephen Rolfe in 1467 may also have been in that part of the parish rather than farther north in Upper Holloway. In 1766-7 Joseph Pocock and Daniel Harrison built Paradise Row, a terrace of 31 houses, near the north end of the Back Road; far from other building at Pentonville and built long before Barnsbury was begun, it remained isolated until c. 1800. Individual villas and small terraces appeared in Holloway Road towards the end of the 18th century: by 1805 Ring Cross was linked with Lower Holloway by building along the north-east side of Holloway Road, and with Upper Street by buildings on both sides, with continual additions and infilling. On the south-west side of Ring Cross, George Pocock built several small streets on land belonging to Lord Northampton including George's Place and Cornwall Place c. 1800 and Independent Place, adjoining the latter, c. 1806. A water-proofing factory was at the bottom of Hornsey Road by 1801; the nonconformist Holloway chapel was built in 1804, with Holloway Place next to it. After land on the north-east side of the high road near Highbury Crescent was enfranchised in 1806, several houses were built, such as no. 72 Holloway Road in 1812, and houses to the south built by the mason and sculptor John Atkinson. By 1811 growth was such that the chapel of ease, completed 1814, was sited there between Holloway and the back roads, and the new parochial schools were built in the Back Road opposite the chapel grounds in 1815."

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
Lower Holloway parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.


 * Records are also available at the London Metropolitan Archives.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Middlesex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Lower Holloway in Islington on GENUKI