East Coker

East Coker is a village and civil parish in the South Somerset district of Somerset, England. Its nearest town is Yeovil, which is situated two miles north from the village. The village has a population of 1,667. The parish includes the hamlets and areas of North Coker, Burton, Holywell, Coker Marsh, Darvole, Nash, Keyford as well as the Southern end of the Wraxhill area.HistoryA Roman villa was discovered in East Coker in the 18th century and subsequent excavation has discovered artefacts including a mosaic, however further work is needed to fully identify the plan of the building.In the Domesday Survey of 1086 the villages of West and East Coker were known as Cocre.The parish was part of the hundred of Houndsborough.In 1645, soon after the English Civil War, 70 people in the village died of the plague.In 2011 South Somerset Council published a plan for local housing which included a proposal for the construction of 3,700 new houses on land between East Coker and Yeovil. Local opposition has been vocal. It included an application, supported by Andrew Motion, for World Heritage Site listing based on associations with T. S. Eliot who wrote the poem East Coker, the second of his "Four Quartets" in 1940 after a visit to the village.