Bohemia Village Voice

[Part 2 of 5 excerpts from a Hastings Observer, February 1966, article entitled ‘Bohemia For Gipsy Teas And Syllabub’, which explores the possibilities of how Bohemia got its name. Hastings Museum curator, Mr J. Mainwaring Baines, had said that the best known reference to Bohemia is in the first Hastings Guide, published by John Stell in 1794, which mentions a farmhouse  called Bohemia, “famous for plenty of fine cream; on which account it is much frequented in the summer by tea and syllabub parties.” ]     
BOHEMY FARM
What about old maps? Hastings is very badly off for these. Samuel Cant, the old schoolmaster and surveyor, produced his excellent plans of the town in the middle of the eighteenth century, but none of them cover the Bohemia area. The first county map on a sufficiently large scale to show it was that by Messrs Yeakell and Gardner in 1783. This marks Bohemy Farm and this spelling was retained when the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map came out in 1813.
   Having come to a dead-end with maps, we must turn to other sources. Now the poor rate assessment book for the parish of St Mary Magdalen should provide some information. Bohemia is not mentioned till 1804; up till then, it was ‘for Genrill Murray Land, £53.10s. and the occupier Benjamin Foster. Murray, of course, is known as the gallant defender of Minorca and the man who as a jurat of Hastings, brought back the coat of arms trophy from the gates of Quebec after the city had been taken. He married one of the daughters of John Collier, the wealthy and all-important town clerk, and built Beauport.
   Trying further back, further study shows that one Samuel Cramp had the same assessment of £53 10s against his name ‘for Mrs Collier Land’ in 1762, but there is no mention at all of Bohemia. Earlier records are missing.
[To be continued …]