The Dresser

 

Loggerheads at The Dresser

On the back wall of The Dresser, a fashionable clothes shop in Shrewsbury is this plaque of loggerheads. It looks like a hobby-piece, rather than a civic installation.
The owners, who like it as a fun-piece, say they have no idea how it came to be there, or who made it.

Anyone want to attempt an answer?
Please let us have your thoughts... Use the comments field just down this page.

If you'd like more of these loggerheads mysteries as soon as they are posted (weekly), just use the Follow By Email box (which you will see in the upper right-hand corner of this page)

Welcome to 2009

 

Welcome To Shrewsbury sign

This sign on the Frankwell roundabout reading Welcome To Shrewsbury naturally incorporates the town's official logo.  Curiously, it is a little out of date, as the logo seen here is that of Shrewsbury & Atcham Council which was abolished in 2009.  A new council - Shrewsbury Town Council - arose out of the ashes, and adopted a slightly different logo.

Salop House mark

 


You'd think there would be something distinctively Salopian about a building called Salop House (on College Hill in Shrewsbury).
But no, nothing one can see - except for the insurance badge.


Insurance badges are ubiquitous in Shrewsbury. Used by fire insurance companies to work out which homes were insured with them, they were also a marker for a fire engine in days gone by. Wrong insurance mark - and the fire engine left without helping!

The 'Salop Fire Office' was the longest-established of these companies, and its marks, some of which are over 200 years old, are still on frontages today all over the county. As you can see, they carry the loggerheads plus the word SALOP.

Student souvenirs

Shrewsbury University mugs

 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.

Smokin loggerheads

 

Smokin Salop banner

Smokin’ Salop are just one of the many firms in Shropshire who see the loggerheads as a great way to give local credibility (and pride) to their business.

There are an amazing amount of variations on the loggerheads design, from the truly imaginative to the quite bizarre.  Smokin Salop have stuck to their USP though - the knife and cleaver in the design indicate what they do; they are a competition BBQ team (from Shrewsbury of course!).

Gobowen commemorative

 


We found this commemorative plate in a display cabinet the hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry, in north Shropshire.
It bears a now outdated version of the loggerheads device used by Shropshire County. (The colours are now different.) 

Missing from field hospital

 

C Detachment 202 (Midlands) sign

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.

If you'd like more of these loggerheads mysteries as soon as they are posted (weekly), just use the Follow By Email box (which you will see in the upper right-hand corner of this page)

Popular posts