“The name of Houël or Hoël is of Breton origin, and was at first, like Conan, Mériadec, and others of the same kind, a personal denomination.

“During the reigns of Rollo’s successors, a considerable intercourse was established between Normandy and Brittany. A certain number of younger sons from Brittany entered the service of the Dukes of Normandy, and acquired fiefs and lordships, generally in the parts adjoining their own country. The different branches of the family of Houël, whose cradle was in the parish of Tourneur, near the town of Vire, probably had for their ancestor one of these Breton emigrants, who established himself in this fief, of which his first descendants bore the name. In fact, we find in some of the lists of the Conquest the name of Houel, replaced in others by that of Sire du Tourneur. 'E li sires de Vaacie, del Torneor, e de Praeres:' (Wace): 'De la Huse et Howel' (Leland). What confirms us in this opinion is, that an ancient pedigree of the house, dated 1596, declares the Houels to be descendants of the race and estres of the Sires du Tourneur."—Nobiliaire de Normandie. The existing family of Houël du Tourneur bear Paly of six Or and Azure, but this cannot have been the original coat, for the seal of "Thomæ Hoel,” affixed to a deed of 1216, shows an estoile of eight prints. Another Thomas Houel was one of the one hundred and nineteen knights that defended Mont St. Michel against the English in 1423.

The Celtic Hoele or Howell is familiar to us in Wales, and widely diffused throughout England. In some cases the name is surmised to be a corruption of Hautville, which “became in Norfolk Auville, Haville, Hovel, and Dunton.” —The Norman People. Yet Leland gives both, as distinct names; and the Hovels that were seated in Suffolk bore arms entirely different from any of the coats used by the Hautvilles. They dated from the time of the Conqueror, when Richard Hovel held a lordship at Wigvereston in that county of Baldwin, Abbot of Bury. “Sir Hugh Hovel was Lord of Hovel’s Manor, Chediston, in 1287. He was the ancestor of Sir Richard Hovel, Esquire of the Body to Henry V., and is now represented by Lord Thurlow. Sir Hugh was evidently a knight of great consequence in this county. In a list of knights, made in the reign of Ed. II., his name stands first among the Suffolk families, and his arms are thus emblazoned: Sir Duge Dobel, de sable, et une crois de or. The family seem to have been rather contumacious subjects at this period of almost universal anarchy; for Robert Hovel is returned in the Hundred Rolls as prohibiting the proclamation of the King’s command in this village.” - Sucklings Suffolk. Sir John Hovel of Wretting Parva, Suffolk, was living in 1370: and a William Hovel of Rishanger died in 1433: but their chief seat was at Ashfield, near Ixworth, where they were still to be found at the beginning of the last century. They had, it appears, adopted the name of Smith; and in 1730 Elizabeth Smith, their heiress, married the Rev. Thomas Thurlow, clergyman of the parish, and was the mother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow. The next Lord Thurlow added the name of Hovel to his own.

A branch seated during four generations at Hillington in Norfolk had ended with William Hovel in 1671, when his three sisters, dementia, Dorothy, and Etheldreda, divided his estates.