Kitley Heritage -Hele impaling Glanville

41/ Gules a bend lozengy ermine Impaling Azure three saltires or – Hele impaling Glanville

Sampson Hele of Gnaton, Newton Ferrers, married Joan, daughter of John Glanville, c1615. His daughter Johanna (or Joan) married William Bastard (q.v. shield 42).

The Glanvilles, like the Bastards and the Fortescues, also came over with the Conquorer, the Ranulph de Glanville who sailed with William of Normandy in 1066 being the grandson of the Richard de Glanville who was Lord of Glanville, near Caen, before 1042. The family later established themselves at Tavistock, from whence John Glanville sallied forth into Spain with the Black Prince 1365. Joan’s father, another John, was MP for Tavistock 1586, MP for St Germans 1592, a Judge, and was appointed Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1598, just two years before he died. He bought the Barton of Kilworthy, on the outskirts of Tavistock, where his son later built the Manor House.

The Heles, meanwhile, were possibly natives of this country, but the earliest reference to the name does not come until c1154, when the family estates were apparently in Bradninch Parish. But the main family lines descend from the branches who about the same period must have already established themselves at Hele in Cornwood, where John de la Hele lived in the Reign of King Henry III. Researching the ancestry of the main Devon gentry’ families, one often comes across the same surnames cropping up at various stages in the different lines of descent, and interestingly, Sampson Hele’s grandfather, John had married the daughter of one of the Pollexfens of Yealmpton.