Nicholas Jenyns

1519 Nich. Jenyns, of London, leather dresser. To be the King's leather dresser or serjeant furrier (serviens pelletriæ) vice Th. Jenyns, deceased, with 12d. a day. Westm., 27 Sept.—Pat. 11 Hen. VIII. p. 2, m. 20.

1520 June 11 Hen. VIII.—At Windsor. To Nicol Jenyns of London, skinner, rent and tithes for two years, for a house in Barking parish

February 6, 1526 Nicholas Jenyns, Skinner Alderman of The City of London

Walter atte Vann was subsequently in debt. In 1412 John Loxley for 'le Fanne' and Thomas atte Vann pay 6d. for leave of absence from the hundred court. (fn. 187) In 1448 Bernard Jenyn or Jenings was summoned to the court (fn. 188) to do fealty, probably for Vann, for in 1476 John Hill and John Mellersh, probably trustees, enfeoffed Bernard Jenings of 'land in the manor of Vann' in tail male. John son of Bernard succeeded to it at his father's death, (fn. 189) and his son Nicholas is said to have settled the manor on his wife Margaret for life, with remainder to their son Bernard.

This name is that of the corner property between Petty Wales and the river, and adjoining Tower Dock or Watergate. The names of its occupiers have already been given in the bounds of Clare's Quay: (fn. 11) 1352, Peter Talworth; 1368, Salamon Brownyng, who is still a tenant in 1398. In 1494 John Assheford, junior, and Alice his wife, daughter of Thomas, son of Laurence Braunche, quitclaim to John Morcote, yeoman, and Robert Williamson, chaplain, a corner tenement and wharf in Petty Wales between the tenement of Robert Purfoot on the west and the Watergate annexed to the Tower on the east, which Laurence Braunche had with other properties of the feoffment of Thomas Depdene, plumber, John Carpenter, junior, and Reginald Weldon. (fn. 12)

We have already seen that in 1525 the property was described as the brewhouse of Nicholas Jenyns, who also owned Clare's Quay, (fn. 13) and Nicholas in his will, quoted in the first part of the Survey of this Parish, (fn. 14) mentions his quay in Petty Wales and another house of his called the Ram's Head in Eastcheap which he bequeathed to the Skinners' Company. The story of how he became possessed of the Ram's Head in All Hallows Barking is told in a number of documents in the Early Chancery Proceedings at the Public Record Office. (fn. 15) It appears that John Ashford and Alice his wife (mentioned above) had granted a lease of the premises to Henry Mortelman in 1515 for fifty years. Mortelman rebuilt "the great messuage called the Rammys Hed "at his own costs and charges, and when he died he left it, in equal parts, to his widow Joan and his daughter Avice, who was wife of Nicholas Gibson, citizen and grocer. Joan remarried Nicholas Jenyns, and during her lifetime, and for twenty-seven years thereafter, the daughter Avice was excluded from her share. On the death of Nicholas the Ram's Head was seized by his executors John and Thomas Pyke, who were trustees during the nonage of a son, Bernard Jenyns, and when Nicholas and Avice Gibson attempted to install John Pope, a tenant of their own, the Pykes turned him out.