Croker's Hele, Meeth

Croker's Hele is an historic estate in the parish of Meeth[1] in Devon, England.

It was one of several estates split-off from the single manor of Hele, listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as the 47th[2] of the 79 Devonshire holdings of Robert, Count of Mortain (died 1090), half-brother of King William the Conqueror and one of his Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief.

Later sources evidence three further subdivisions of Hele which had occurred by that time, namely: Hele is the earliest known Devonshire seat of the prominent Crocker family,[5] which according to a traditional Devon rhyme: Crocker, Cruwys, and Copplestone, When the Conqueror came were all at home was one of just three Devon families to have a pre-Conquest pedigree – a claim dismissed by W. G. Hoskins as a "hackneyed jingle" with "not a word of truth in it".

[6] Croker's Hele was the seat of William Crocker, living during the reign of King Edward III (1327-1377).

[7] In the 14th century Croker's Hele was abandoned by John Crocker (William's grandson) in favour of Lyneham in the parish of Yealmpton, Devon, which he had inherited from his wife Alice Gambon, daughter and heiress of John Gambon of Lyneham.