Paint the town... gold & blue!

 

A very ordinary structure, a bridge support, once in concrete grey, has recently been painted in gold-and-blue, the colour of the loggerheads and - by extension - the town of Shrewsbury. 
It’s not clear if the work is in celebration of the loggerheads’ 600th birthday, but – let’s assume it is!

Unlike the similar Meole Brace paintwork, this activity has not been carried out by the town council.  This is the work of a maverick local character, John Edwards, aka ‘The Sign Guy’.  

John started off as a kind of community champion, setting himself to clean the town’s street-signs, making them look new again.  Quickly, he’s moved on from there; and he now does paint-jobs covering up ugly graffiti on public walls. It’s all voluntary, and even the materials are donated (usually).  The council love him for it, naturally.

This particular painting effort can be seen on the supports of the Frankwell pedestrian bridge in Shrewsbury which crosses the River Severn to the town’s new Guildhall. 

Incidentally, both sides of the bridge-support are painted in exactly the same way, with the other side facing the river.  So… if by nothing else, any boats passing by, seeing the colours on the bridge, will know they are in Shrewsbury….!

For more about the history of the gold-and-blue colouring of the arms of Shrewsbury (aka the ‘loggerheads’), click here 

 

A new book has been published to celebrate 600 years of the loggerheads - click here to find out more.

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Big banner at Henry Tudor House

 
This is a detail taken from a fascinating illustration in Thomas Auden's 1905 Book Of Shrewsbury.  It shows one of the town's most famous historic buildings, Henry Tudor House, with a huge loggerheads banner hanging from it. Sadly, it's not clear if this flag-display was a permanent feature of the house at the time, or put up for a special occasion. 

Oddly, the artist only shows one shield of arms in the stained-glass of the central first-floor window, yet we know there are six shields today (see previous post).  Was this just a mistake by the artist, or were the current windows put in after 1905?  It would be lovely to know - suggestions please!

At the time of this illustration, a fishmonger called Harry Mudd tenanted Henry Tudor House (the ground floor at least), which is why there is a reference to Grimsby on the frontage, Grimsby being thought to be the home of the very best fish.

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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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Taxing at St Nicholas

These loggerheads appear over the doorway into the Saint Nicholas Cafe Bar in the Castle Gates area of Shrewsbury town.

When I first noticed them some years ago, they were in a small window in the staircase up one of the turrets (the building being a converted church). At that time, the owner said he thought that the building had been a tax office (or something like that) some decades ago for the local authority - thus we have the town council logo, the loggerheads.  Does anyone know any different theory?

The building is the Victorian neo-Norman church of St Nicholas which I find rather ugly, but, nevertheless, it is Grade II listed. 
It's not clear when it was converted to secular use.

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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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Edwin Cole's glass

 
A very very good friend spotted this rather lovely piece of decorated glass on sale at an arts shop in Shrewsbury. Thank you to her!
It’s been attributed to Edwin Cole, who was born in the town in 1860.
Cole is much better known for his watercolours, so this is a rare find. Which probably explains why it’s quite expensive …!

It’s difficult to tell if this was a commission from the municipality (for an office) or from a private patron (for their home).  Does anyone know?

You’ll find it at Number Sixty One.

(PS if you too have spotted a loggerheads, please let us know!)

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Dodo on box

 
The public relations company working to boost Shrewsbury, ‘Shrewsbury BID’, has been busy this summer commissioning artists to paint the town's telecom cabinets.  The artworks give a very colourful look to the environment.
As they seem to be on a general wildlife theme, I had rather hoped a loggerhead-leopard might be included – but sadly no.
This bird here is an (extinct) dodo, reminding us of how many species are now no longer with us.

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Anonymous planter

 
You'll see a number of lead planters/troughs around Shrewsbury, some of which go back 250 years (see Shrewsbury Library planter for example).  However, the story of this one is not clear.  It bears the loggerheads and sits on the wall outside St Julian's Church, but otherwise it's rather anonymous.
Can anyone help us by giving us any clues to its story?  

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Visitors' loss

 
Oddly, now and again, you DON'T find loggerheads when you really would have expected them.  Shrewsbury Bus Station is a building that is dreary beyond belief, so it would be enhanced by a set of loggerheads - but not one is in evidence.
Also, you'd have thought that a loggerheads would be prominently displayed anyway, just as an identifying form of welcome for arriving visitors.  But no.

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Leaving his mark

 
One of the least noticed loggerheads-sets is this one, which is in the apex of The Old Bank Buildings in Shrewsbury's Barker Street. They were probably erected in the 1930s when Arthur Ward, the Borough Surveyor, drove through the plans to widen the road at this point, resulting in new frontages. 

You could call them 'post Arts & Crafts' in style if you wanted to.  (Ward was no philistine, so he ensured the new-build was sensitive).
Ward was also very proud of the town, so (it's thought) he liked to leave a set of loggerheads here and there!

(Credit for the information for this post to: Phil Scoggins' article in the Civic Society's Newsletter of March 2020)

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Wide-mouthed loggerheads

 

This small plaque appears over the door on Wesley House in Shrewsbury's Fish Street. The building dates back to the 1400s; it's so named because John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, preached from it in 1761.
In 2019, it was converted - in a respectful way - and is now a bed & breakfast.

The plaque is not be confused with an insurance mark, but it's not quite clear what its function is - if indeed it has one. Certainly these particular loggerheads have the widest mouths of all loggerheads we've seen!

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Daubing on Butcher Row

Butcher Row is one of Shrewsbury's iconic medieval streets and is full of listed buildings - but it looks like someone once thought it a good idea to paint daubs on some of these venerable door frames.

You have to look for them, but when you find them, you'll see that one of the daubs is a set of loggerheads. The work is amateurish and includes an unusual heraldic lion.

The other daub  that interests us is a shield of arms (see below right) - which we don't recognise. 

So, the mysteries are: who painted the loggerheads, and when, and why?  And whose arms are those on the second image?

Please let us have your thoughts... Use the comments field just down this page or email us direct.  

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Leopards. Definitely!

 
You may need to squint a bit - but in this picture you can see a leopard (with spots!) inside a pink-ish template of the shape of the county of Shropshire. This piece of pavement-artwork is just outside the offices of Shropshire Archives in Shrewsbury.

There has been debate over the centuries as to whether the loggerheads that are emblematic of the town are lions or leopards.  It looks like the Archives think they are definitely leopards. 

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Rolled out the barrel - and away

This photo of the Loggerheads Pub in Shrewsbury centre was taken in 1999.  The barrel sign was rather well-known; as you can see, it shows the loggerheads on it, painted in gold.

However, sometime over the last twenty years, it was taken down and no one seems to know where it is now - if it exists any longer at all.

Does anyone know anything about it - or what happened to it?  The present owners are unaware of its history.
Please let us have your thoughts on this mystery... Use the comments field just down this page or email us direct.  

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Student souvenirs

 The University of Shrewsbury has only been in the town two years, but it has kept things traditional; it immediately adopted the loggerheads device, and now, as you can see, it's all over their souvenir-ware.

Missing from field hospital

 

The C Detachment 202 (Midlands) base is just by the old Copthorne Barracks in Shrewsbury, and is used by the Army Reserve Forces.

The four quarters of its shield represent the four Midlands counties that this unit is associated with, with Shropshire's symbol in the bottom right-hand.

Curiously, while everything else is correct about the Shropshire bit (the colours, the W shape with fleur-de-lys on), the one element missing is ... the loggerheads.  It should have the loggerheads.
(To see the device complete with loggerheads, click here).

Now, why's that? Why are they missing?
Please let us have your thoughts... Use the comments field just down this page.

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Shrewsbury hopper

 

If you just look up, and carefully, you'll see plenty of loggerheads, even in the most unlikely places.
This set is on the hopper of a rain downpipe at the Old Market Hall in Shrewsbury town centre.

The OMH building rests on stilts, so to speak, with an open space beneath it that once served as a public market where the the certain stalls within it kept out of the rain.

The first floor area (which you glimpse here) would have been an civic-administrative space, which is why there are loggerheads all over the OMH.  Nowadays, the first floor at the OMH is a cafe and small independent cinema. 

I guess that the loggerheads device on this hopper is what would you'd call an example of civic pride in action.

Which firm would have erected these?

Proud lion, with leopards

 

The proud lion of the Lion Hotel in Shrewsbury stands atop a loggerheads device, though in this instance, it has a chevron separating the three leopards' heads from each other.  The basic loggerheads faces also would have dangling tongues - but not here.
Curiously, this prominent sculpture is round the back of the hotel, facing a small municipal car-park, so most tourists never see it. Shame.  

Does anyone have a date for this?  Please use the comments box below if you can help...

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