Roche’s parentage is obscure, but it is possible that he was related to the Reynold Roche who was present at the Cornish shire elections of 1407. The family was clearly of some standing, owning lands extending over more than 1,000 acres in the parishes of St. Merryn, St. Issey, St. Breock and elsewhere in north Cornwall, which Nicholas was later to describe as his ‘old inheritance’, and the assessment of his annual income at £5 in 1451 was probably an underestimate.
Although Roche is not known to have held any property in either of the boroughs he represented in Parliament, his tenure of land nearby may have been deemed sufficient to qualify him under the statutory requirement for residency. Certainly, he had close links with the burgesses of Bodmin, for his sister, Thomasina, was married to a local man, one John Walter.
In the second half of his life Roche was forced to fend off a series of challenges to the tenure of his and his wife’s estates. He had entrusted his brother Richard with the safe keeping of his muniments, but at Richard’s death they came into the hands of another kinsman, John Roche, from whom Nicholas was forced to recover them by litigation in Chancery.