The loggerheads of finance

 

Standing proud on the corner on Shrewsbury’s main square, the Salop Old Bank building is impressively stolid – as befits a bank!
The business had some pedigree: the Salop ‘Old’ Bank, set up in 1885, was the child of the already long-established Salop Bank (1812).

The loggerheads’ connection in this instance is in the institution’s bank-notes (which the bank issued themselves): the decorative motif on the left of the notes features the loggerheads.  The museum archives has a very good example of one of the bank’s £5 notes (SHYMS_N_2013_0017a).

Incidentally, this is yet another instance of a town politician associating himself with the loggerheads. Robert Burton, the bank’s main partner, had been town mayor for a while.

The bank didn’t last long, being taken over in 1907 and eventually falling into the hands of the Lloyds Banking Group – you can still see some arms carved into the side of the building.
But no longer is the building connected with banks. It’s now a jeweller’s.

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Golden loggerheads

Following on from the last post, here's another piece by Edwin Cole. His descendant Garen Ewing passed on this photo to me - thank you to him!
The piece is a Battle of Shrewsbury memorial coin - made in 1903, designed by the then mayor Herbert Southam, and actually illustrated by Edwin Cole - to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Shrewsbury.  A number were made, some in gold.

Obviously, the loggerheads, as the symbol of Shrewsbury, were included on the medal, among other heraldic devices.

Interestingly, the newspaper report of the time described Cole as an heraldic artist, not a watercolourist (which I thought he was more famous as).

In theory, one should still be able to see a copy of this coin.
One of the ones made of gold, says a contemporary newspaper report, was placed into one of the links in the town Mayor's chain of office.

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