A kerchief for Xmas

 

The Christmas Tree Festival at St Chad’s in Shrewsbury is always a welcome event. The town’s organisations all submit trees decorated to promote their various roles in the community.

Naturally the Shrewsbury Morris Dancers had to sponsor a tree, and naturally their loggerhead kerchiefs, as well as blue & amber coloured ribbons, were fully in evidence. 

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Up to date street sign

 

In a previous post we noted that nearly all of Shrewsbury’s street signs are out of date, as they show the badges of the old Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council, which came to an end with local government changes in 2009. Shrewsbury then went its separate way from Atcham - and Shrewsbury Town Council was formed… with a revised badge.

Slowly, very slowly, the street name-plates are being replaced; to have the town’s own, new badge.  The designs of these newer loggerheads are more leopard-like than the old shaggy loggerheads of the S&Atcham days.

If you’re wondering what the red mark is where the mouth is, it’s a much-reduced version of the heraldic red-tongue.

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Loggerheads in brown & yellow

 

After mentioning the way the Scouts' Shropshire logo features laughing-style loggerheads (see previous post), here are some more of the same - on the side of the Andy Miles Scout Centre at the West Mids Showground in Shrewsbury.  

The colours of the Scout Movement are brown & yellow, which is , I presume, why the loggerheads here are in those colours and not in their traditional colours of gold & blue. Earl Roger, who gave the gold & blue colours to Shrewsbury-Shropshire, may perhaps be turning in his grave!  (see our Earl Roger In Gold & Blue post)

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Scouting for Shropshire

 

Many thanks to the local Scout leader who lent his arm for this photo. He was pretty proud of his badge with the Shropshire arms.

In yet another twist on how the loggerheads are depicted, this set seem to be laughing in a kind of devilish fashion..., which I can’t think was the original intention.

See also our post on The Scout Centre

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Battlefield medal

 

In 1903 a medal was struck for the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Shrewsbury, which was fought on a site just outside the town, now aptly known as Battlefield.  In the battle (made famous in Shakespeare) King Henry IV’s forces defeated the rebel army of Harry Hotspur and his allies.  The medal shows the church put up on the site by Henry VII as an act of gratitude toward God.

On the obverse of the medal can be seen the arms of Shrewsbury and Shropshire with their loggerheads. The other two shields of arms are the Royal Arms and one other which I can’t identify. It might be the arms of the Earl Of Powis, the Lord-Lieutenant of the county at the time.  Can anyone identify it?

Interestingly, one of the most famous mayors of Shrewsbury, Herbert Southam, was in office at the time, and he has somehow wangled it that this name is on this medal too (in the rim), though there is no real reason why it should be there.  Politicians don’t change….!

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Earl Roger in gold & blue

 

Thanks to JT for responding to my post about Earl Roger of Montgomery, the original Norman overlord of Shrewsbury.  I was mulling there over the theory that the gold & blue colouring in the loggerheads might have come from Earl Roger's shield of arms (even though if he had a set of arms, I couldn't find them).

JT pointed me in the direction of the 17th century map made by John Speed, a copy of which is to be found in the Civil War Room at Shrewsbury Museum.  Speed clearly has Roger's colours as gold & blue. 
However, as Speed lived five hundred years after Roger, he may have just been responding to a 'folk tradition'.

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Going Dutch at the cafe

 

The 'Old Market Hall' cinema-cafe complex in the centre of Shrewsbury displays more than one set of loggerheads.  This one, in the cafe windows, celebrates the links between Shrewsbury and the Dutch town of Zutphen - with the town council's arms on the left and a picture of of Sir Philip Sidney on the right.
Sir Philip, who was educated at Shrewsbury and has a statue dedicated to him at Shrewsbury School, died of his wounds at the Battle of Zutphen in 1586. 
The photo shows part of the window in the OMH which was created to celebrate the long-standing 'twinning' agreement between the two towns (which only recently came to an end).

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The Masons and The Loggerheads

 
Many organisations that want to associate themselves with Shropshire or want to assert that they are the key group of their type in the county will use the Shropshire badge - with its loggerheads.
The Provincial Grand Chapter of the Freemasons, which is based at the lodge's building in the Castlefields suburb of Shrewsbury, is no different - and this is their banner.

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Women's Institute softens with age

Over the years organisations change their logos - a way to adapt to modern times or just as a way to refresh a look.
The Shropshire Women's Institute did just that. 

The badge on the left comes from the 1950s; and the loggerheads are in the traditional style for the county logo.
The faces are passive, but the colours of blue and amber follow the tradition.

The 'ermine spots' - the decorations that resemble a topiary bush - are unusual in shape, but not completely outside the tradition.

('Erminois' is a heraldic device, meant to resemble the kind of prestigious ermine fur used by the peerage, which features dark spots).

 

 Meanwhile, the current version (right) is a much more cuddly one!  With age, the organisation has clearly mellowed, and taken a softer approach.

The leopards are more like puzzled kittens now and the amber colouring has toned down to a yellow.

What are really different are the ermine spots, which are not in the usual shape, but rather resemble Christmas trees... Admittedly, ermine spots have continued to change over the years, but these are new to us...

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Leopards with coronets (?)

 

You'll find three leopards' heads in a triangular shape used in heraldry all over the world, though only in Shropshire can they rightfully be called loggerheads.

Here's an example: this is a photo of some heraldic arms on a gravestone at Hixon St Peter's in Staffordshire.  The grave seems to be that of a 19th-century local dignitary, Enoch Broad. I haven't been able to trace whether these are his personal arms or simply that of the family - or indeed of Hixon itself (maybe).
It's also difficult, because the stone is so worn, to identify the ring round the creatures' heads as a simple circlet, or even a coronet.
You'd think the chevron would be a helpful piece of evidence, but.... not so far.

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Loggerheads-loving guilds

On the first floor corridor of Shrewsbury Museum you'll see a number of historic local maps. One particular old map seems to have been sponsored by the town's guilds (guilds were associations of workers in a particular trade).
Along the top of the map, each sponsoring guild has a copy of its arms - and two stand out in particular for loggerheads lovers. 

The Weavers' Guild (see picture above) are keen to establish their Shrewsbury identity, and feature three loggerheads, the town's symbol.  The leopards carry some sort of tool of the trade in their mouths - perhaps a long needle, a shuttle, or maybe a shed-stick.  (Does anyone know?)
The Goldsmiths (below) are more circumspect, and keep to two loggerheads.

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