Lyneham, Yealmpton
It is likely that the one hide within that manor which the Domesday Book states the king had granted in frankalmoinage to "the clergy of the same village" (clerici ei(us)d(em) villae) was Lynham.
John Croker of Lyneham (son of John Croker of Hele (now "Crocker's Hele",[4] a 7-acre solar farm[20])in the parish of Meeth,[5] Devon, MP for Tavistock in 1394 and Portreve of Tavistock,[21] son of William Crocker, MP, of Hele, living during the reign of King Edward III (the earliest member of the family recorded in the Heraldic Visitations of Devon.
He was followed by his son John Croker, who was followed by his son Sir John Croker (died 1508), a Member of Parliament for Devon in 1491[23] (whose inscribed monumental brass showing him dressed in armour survives in Yealmpton Church[24]) who married twice, firstly to Elizabeth Yeo, a daughter of Robert Yeo of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, secondly to Elizabeth Fortescue, daughter of Sir Richard Fortescue and widow of a certain Elliott.
This John Croker married twice, firstly to Jone Arundell, daughter of Humphry Arundell of "Selley", without children, and secondly to Elizabeth Pollard, a daughter of Sir Lewis Pollard (c. 1465 – 1526) of Grilstone in the parish of Bishop's Nympton, a Justice of the Common Pleas and Member of Parliament for Totnes.
[25] He was followed by another John Croker (the sixth, who died in 1560), his son by Elizabeth Pollard, who married Elizabeth Strode, a daughter of Richard Strode (died 1552) of Newnham in the parish of Plympton St Mary, who in 1538 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries purchased the demesne lands of Plympton Priory, the second wealthiest monastery in Devon.
In 1699 Prince reported that:[33] As to the present seat of the family, Lineham aforesaid, it is an antient house, which being grown weak and descript thro’ age, is now a repairing, or rather rebuilding, by the present possessor, Courtenay Crocker aforementioned, who is a justice of peace for the county, and a burgess of parliament, this present year 1699, for the burrough of Plimton Morice, in this shireThe house he built survives largely intact today.
[2] Sir Courtenay Croker married twice: firstly on about 1691 to Catharine Hillersdon, daughter and co-heiress of Richard Hillersdon of Membland in the parish of Holbeton, by whom he had one daughter and sole heiress Mary Croker, wife of James Bulteel.
[34] He died in 1740 with no sons, when his only daughter Mary Croker (who in 1718 had married James Bulteel (1676–1757), since 1716 lord of the manor of Flete, Holbeton, MP for Tavistock) became his sole heiress.
Between c.1658 and 1667 he was Secretary to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor to King Charles II from 1658, two years before the Restoration of the Monarchy, until 1667.
Some part of his issue went to Ireland and settled there and had issue.The pedigree of Bulteel printed in Burke's Landed Gentry commences with Samuel Bulteel (died 1682) of Tavistock in Devon, a Huguenot refugee from France, whose son was James Bulteel (1676–1757) of Tavistock, MP for Tavistock 1703-8 and 1711–15,[41] who married Mary Crocker, daughter and heiress of Courtenay Crocker (died 1740), of Lyneham.
[49] Lyneham was briefly owned by Peter Cadbury (1918–2006), a member of the Quaker chocolate-making dynasty and founder of Westward Television.
He soon sold it, and moved to Upton Grey Lodge in Hampshire, stating that "police harassment had made his life there intolerable".
[50] This related to his having "developed a particularly fierce animosity" towards the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall, whose appearances on Westward Television news programmes he had tried to censor.
