2 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



The Jen- the fact that not only was William Jenkin (as 

 stowting, already mentioned) Mayor of Folkestone in 1555, 

 but no less than twenty-three times in the suc- 

 ceeding century and a half, a Jenkin (William, 

 Thomas, Henry, or Robert) sat in the same place 

 of humble honour. Of their wealth we know that, 

 in the reign of Charles i., Thomas Jenkin of Ey- 

 thorne was more than once in the market buying 

 land, and notably, in 1633, acquired the manor of 

 Stowting Court. This was an estate of some 320 

 acres, six miles from Hythe, in the Bailiwick and 

 Hundred of Stowting, and the Lathe of Shipway, 

 held of the Crown in capite by the service of six 

 men and a constable to defend the passage of the 

 sea at Sandgate. It had a chequered history before 

 it fell into the hands of Thomas of Eythorne, having 

 been sold and given from one to another — to the 

 Archbishop, to Heringods, to the Burghershes, to 

 Pavelys, Trivets, CHffords, Wenlocks, Beauchamps, 

 Nevilles, Kempes, and Clarkes : a piece of Kentish 

 ground condemned to see new faces and to be no 

 man's home. But from 1633 onward it became the 

 anchor of the Jenkin family in Kent ; and though 

 passed on from brother to brother, held in shares 

 between uncle and nephew, burthened by debts and 

 jointures, and at least once sold and bought in again, 

 it remains to this day in the hands of the direct line. 

 It is not my design, nor have I the necessary know- 

 ledge, to give a history of this obscure family. But 



