James Nedeham
James Nedeham or Nedham (died 1544) was an English architect who was Clerk of the King's Works for Henry VIII.
He became a member of the London Carpenter's Company in 1514. First serving the royal works as a carpenter, Nedeham was appointed Clerk of the King's Works on 1 October 1532. He was a successor to the Master Carpenter Humphrey Coke, and he was employed as a military carpenter at Calais, and as a gunner the Tower of London in 1525.[1]
He constructed galleries around the garden of the London house of the Marquess of Exeter in 1530.[2]
In 1534, Nedeham asked Thomas Cromwell for a larger budget for works at the Tower of London for a new gate and bridge and major repairs to the roof of the White Tower.[3] In December 1534, he directed works at Greenwich Palace to make an artificial forest for the Lord of Misrule's boar hunt.[4]
In April 1538, Nedeham was granted leases from various former monastic properties including; lands from the convent of St Mary Wymondley in Hertfordshire.[5] In November 1538, he and colleagues Henry Johnson and Anthony Anthony advised Christopher Morris, the Master of the King's Ordnance, on the building of storehouse and workshops for artillery at the Tower of London.[6]
James Nedeham died in 1544 and was buried at Little Wymondley. The momunument was later destroyed, but a drawing shows a classical structure polychromed as marble with pillars and an architrave surmounted by obelisks.[7]
References
- ^ Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 3:1 (London: HMSO, 1975), pp. 30, 406, 408.
- ^ Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 3:1 (London: HMSO, 1975), p. 30.
- ^ Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 3:1 (London: HMSO, 1975), p. 268.
- ^ Natalie Grueninger, The Final Year of Anne Boleyn (Pen & Sword, 2022), p. 39.
- ^ James Gairdner, Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, 13:1 (London, 1892), p. 327 no. 886 (13).
- ^ Edward Basil Jupp, An Historical Account of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters of the City of London (London, 1887), p. 176.
- ^ Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 3:1 (London: HMSO, 1975), plate 1.