St Michael and All Angels, East Coker
Perhaps there was a Roman temple or church here in Roman times, as the site of the Church is typical of a commanding vantage point for safety and protection.
Certainly, the present Church has Saxon foundations, and Ham stone on the West end confirms this. It is thought that the large cruciform building with a tower at the central cross point was a Minster Church for the area. Curates would have been trained here, and sent out to the surrounding parishes to celebrate and lead the worship.
In Saxon and early Norman times, the Manor was held by members of the royal family. "the King holds Cocre. Ghida (mother of Earl Harold) held it in the time of King Edward the Confessor. King William Rufus granted the Manor of Cocre to the Abbey of St Stephen at Caen in the province of Normandy, founded in 1064 by William Duke of Normandy, who was buried there in 1093".
The Mandeville and Courteney families were Lords of the Manor, and from the time of King John until Edward III, it was the de Mandevilles that built the Church which we presently see.
Hugh de Courteney, Earl of Devon, and his family then held the Manor for the next 250 years. During this time, the North Aisle and Chapel dedicated to St John and The Holy Cross was added. The Chapel dedicated to Our Lady St Mary was already on the South Aisle.
During the time of Queen Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603) the manor was sold to Bartholomew Trevilian (the family now live at Drayton near Langport), and subsequently to the Symes and then to the Helyars.
Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, held the land and Manor of Cochra. It was then from the earliest time a royal holding. This is important when it was recently recounted that part of the Church of St Michael has Saxon building stone at the West End.
At Alfred's death in 901, he left the Manor (and the village) with all the adjoining land to his younger brother Ethelward. In 1066, by right of conquest, William of Normandy came into possession. In the Exeter Domesday Book, there is the following record: "The King holds one Manor which is called Cochra".
During the lifetime of William the Conqueror, he had built and endowed an Abbey in Normandy, St Stephen at Caen. Apparently, he bequeathed all the crown jewels to his abbey where they were received after his death in 1087. His son, William Rufus, anxious to recover the crown jewels, offered in exchange to give to the Abbey "a certain manor by name of Cocre"; the Manor included land, dwellings and tithes.
It is probable that William the Conqueror gave the Manor and lands of East Coker to a Companion-in-Arms, de Mandeville by name. The de Mandevilles held the land for 200 years when, in 1275, on of the daughters of the family married Hugh de Courtenat. The Courteneys were Earls of Devon, and lived for many years at East Coker, building and extending the Church of St Michael and the Manor House, now called The Court.
The Mandevilles and the Courteneys established a Chantry at the Church in honour of St John and The Holy Cross. This Chapel is on the North Side Aisle, and has recently been restored with an altar and reredos curtain. A Chantry priest was appointed, as well as the Rector, and paid for by the Lords of the Manor, with the expectation that services were held with special prayers being said for those who had died.
The Black Plague that devastated the village killed many villagers. The dead were placed in a pit "at the end of the Church path" and this was marked and a stone placed there in 2003. The Plague was no respecter of persons, and it is thought that Archdeacon Helyar and the Vicar probably both died of the contagious disease.The Archdeacon had been chaplain to Queen Elizabeth and married a cousin of hers, Mary Carey. The Archdeacon was succeeded by his grandson, Colonel Robert Helyar, who had fought on the Royalist side in the dreadful war caused by Puritans from 1638 - 1649. Indeed, it was said to be a "judgement of God" that caused the quarter of the population dying by the Black Plague in East and North Coker.
There was also a Chantry Chapel in honour of St Mary Our Lady at Burton in North Coker, and this is probably why the row of cottages in Long Furlong Lane bears the title "Chapel Row". The Chapel probably occupied this site, but it became desecrated "by cock fights, wedding feasts, and revellings", and so was not used for sacred purposes, and pulled down in 1784, and a parish Workhouse built on its foundations.
The Helyar family silver was sacrificed in the cause of the King, Charles II, and was replaced by pewter in the reign of William and Mary. Their Royal Arms are above the North Door in St Michael's, four times the normal size.
South Somerset District Council have made extensive use of the extraordinary and beautiful collection of historical records that belonged to the de Mandeville, Courtenay, Helyar and Heneage families. This collection, one of the best and most complete sets of Manorial Records in the country, is housed at the Taunton Record Office.
The Church is a light handsome structure, in the form of a cross, with a tower in the centre containing a clock, chimes and eight musical bells.
In the Chancel by the side of the north wall is a mutilated effigy in stone of Lady Margaret Courteney, many of whose family are interred within the Crypt.
There is also a stone to the memory of Robert Paul, priest of this parish, who died on 22 August 1673.
The church of St Michael in East Coker has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building. The church is the final resting place of the ashes of T. S. Eliot, whose ancestors came from the village.
At the published co-ordinates, AB parishioners died in the 1CDE Plague.
Now go to N50 54.431, W02 39.409
There are F uprights on this structure.
The cache can be found at
N50 54.DC(F-D), W02 39.(A-3)BE
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