Loggerheads in glass

 

This is one of the least known examples of loggerheads in Shrewsbury even though many tourists pass it ever year.
The reason is: this particular set is featured in a stained-glass panel very high up at the top of a window in the Trinity Chapel in St Mary’s Church. You need binoculars to see them clearly.
When you do see them, you'll notice they have no lolling tongues like the standrd loggerheads.

The tracery around it is clearly of ancient fragments of glass, but it’s doubtful that the loggerheads work is as old.  
Why are they up there anyway?  The rest of the window has nothing to do with Shrewsbury.
Anyone want to try a guess?

They are so high that no-one has been able to get up there to check what age the glass is; and there seems to be no record of its installation. 
The last mystery is that, if you look carefully, there are little white circles over the centre of the loggerheads' mouths.  What are they?  A glazier's mark, or something more significant?  

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

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Shropshire blue

 

The county of Shropshire has had a mixed relationship with the traditional loggerheads symbol.  However, as late as the 1890s, the design of the loggerheads arms representing both Shrewsbury and the county was exactly the same for both.

However, in the mid 1890s, the county council plumped for a variation on the design (see pic right). It introduced the W-shaped ermine 'piles'.  It did though keep the traditional gold & blue colouring.

But… why has the county changed its design again, to an arrangement in blue & white colours (see main picture, above)?
As we all know, the county flag is still officially in blue & gold.

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Imaginary loggerheads

 

Most people in Shrewsbury will know of the Wakeman Trail, a series of collages of ceramic tablets on public sites around the town. They were made by students of the old Wakeman School and are impressions of the town’s buildings.

Mike Griffiths, a former teacher at the school, has made it his task to get them put up.

A friend of ours spotted this loggerheads on one of the works (outside the Catholic Cathedral) and asked Mike (in pic, right) which building the relevant one represented.  

In fact, said Mike, it was no particular ‘real’ building but an amalgamation of a few... which is fair enough!


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Croziers plus loggerhead

Another single loggerhead. 
At the Shrewsbury Arms in Albrighton in east Shropshire, it's obvious that the pub's name is associated with the Talbot family, the Earls Of Shrewsbury (the biggest land-owners locally until the beginning of the twentieth century).
But why the two croziers (aka bishops' staffs)?  The seventeenth century earl was a priest (and is buried in the church opposite the pub); is that why?

Please let us have your thoughts...
(See answers to this mystery in the comments field just down this page). 

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Pub carries the badge

 

One pub stands out as a real home for Shrewsbury Town Football Club supporters - The Prince Of Wales in Belle Vue.
Naturally enough therefore, its front window carries proudly the loggerheads badge of the team. These ones are slightly more bearded than the usual.

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Police mislay two loggerheads

 

The shield of arms for West Mercia Police features emblems of the three counties it represents - lion for Worcestershire, three pears for Herefordshire, and... erm... one loggerhead for Shropshire.  But... why just the one???

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Morris' hopper

 

This rather beautiful 'hopper', as these guttering-bowls are properly called, is to be found in the courtyard leading to the Morris Hall in Shrewsbury.

The man who paid for the building of The Morris Hall in the 1930s was James Kent Morris II, who had a passion for loggerheads...


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