What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms? Part 4

Having looked at some "grand" ways to display your coat of arms inside your home last time, today we're going to look at other displays that are a little less "in your face", as it were. Examples may include something as large as furniture, say, a carved armorial bench, or even a chair (or set of chairs) with painted coats of arms on the backs:

Upon which you may wish to place one or more heraldically decorated pillows or cushions:

Or to help light up a room, an armorial chandelier:

or other lamp:

Of course, you also need to be able to turn on such lights, and a wall switch plate can also be a display of your heraldry:

And as back up, should the power go out temporarily, candlesticks:

And of course, a well-placed mirror can help light up a room by reflecting natural or artificial light, in addition to creating a display of heraldry:

Are you seeing any ideas that you might utilize for displaying your own coat of arms in your home? In our next post, we'll add some more recommendations for you.

What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms? Part 3

So, having decorated the exterior of your home, and the entrance to it, with your coat of arms, what are some of the options for displaying your heraldry inside the home?

Well, there are so many ways to do that in the interior that it's going to take more than one post to cover even a portion of them!

One display of heraldry seen in many homes is a stained glass window, containing either a single coat of arms ...

... or, if you have sufficiently large windows, several, displaying heraldically marriages into the family over generations.

Additionally, a coat of arms painted on a wall or as part of a mural (though this one was done about 1300-1325, and so is not in the latest fashion for such things) ...

... or, if your ceilings are high enough (alas, most of the ones in my house are not), painted on the ceiling can really make a statement! Not to mention the impression it will have on your visitors.

There is also the opportunity to hang a coat of arms on the wall of just about any room, like this one here ...

... or as an overdoor armorial decoration on the way to another room ...

... or elsewhere, say, in the space over a fireplace mantel.

And such carved heraldry doesn't even have to be in full color; you can certainly choose to have one gilded:

or cast in something inexpensive, like aluminum:

or just carved in a plain wood tone:

Don't care to make quite that big a statement in your home? Come back next time and we'll offer some other ways to display your heraldry in your home in some more understated ways.

What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms? Part 2

Looking at other ways that people have used to mark their homes with their coats of arms, we find these welcoming examples, like this yard sign:

Or what is called a "barn quilt" seen in Canada:

Or a banner, or even an enameled sign:

either of which can help lead people up to your doorway:

Over which, of course, you might place a welcoming heraldic light:

With an armorial welcome mat beneath:

And, of course, an armorial door plaque, just in case the haven't quite figured out who lives here yet:

And, of course, you should have some flowers or foliage in a decorative armorial planter nearby:

All this, and we haven't even gotten inside yet!

Have you gotten any ideas for your own little abode yet? Stay tuned, we've got more!

What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms? Part 1

My house is a very, very, very nice house,
With my heraldry in my yard ....

And one of the ways that we have seen many times as a way for people to use their coats of arms is to mark the exterior of their homes.

Now, this can vary because, frankly, not everyone has a classical pediment on their abode which would support a display of heraldry like this one:

Or even perhaps something a little less ostentatious:

Or

Still, there are some more contemporary embellishments that can be added to the exterior without spending a fortune on stone carvers. Something like this modern family has done, which certainly nods to tradition while also modernizes the concept:

Or a gateway out by the street:

Next time, we'll look at some more intimate ways of decorating the exterior of your home with your coat of arms.

What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms?

A question that comes up only occasionally, but one that I think ought to be talked about more than it is, is the issue of, once having obtained a coat of arms (whether through inheritance, through a grant from an heraldic authority, through registration with one of the several regional and international registries, or through self-assumption), what can you do with said coat of arms?

A few suggestions crop up on a regular basis: have a banner made, frame the grant or other document and hang it in your home, have a table banner or table shield made, make a bookplate (or bookplates) with the arms, and a few others.

Well, over the years I have run across (and saved images of) many of the ways that people have used their coat of arms, and in these next several posts, I will be sharing them with you.

Now, this is not to say that even this fairly wide selection is comprehensive; indeed, heraldry can be found used in just about any way that someone's imagination can come up with. But I offer the examples I will be sharing here as a springboard for your own imaginations about the possibilities.

But I will begin with just this one:

As an adjunct to what you can do with your coat of arms, I will also remind people here that, specific grant or not, there is always more than one way to depict a coat of arms, depending upon the specific artist's personal style and/or if the owner wants to mimic the heraldic style of a specific time or era (the image below courtesy of Pro Heraldica in Stuttgart, Germany):

Anyway, stayed tuned for next time, when we begin this series on "What can I do with my coat of arms?"

Wining, Dining, and Heraldry

I recently ran across a couple of newspaper articles about a newly-opened restaurant in Manchester, United Kingdom, that is located in the renovated Rochdale Town Hall there. And since the restaurant has a couple of different connections to heraldry, I thought I would mention it here.

The first connection to heraldry is its name and logo; it is called The Martlet Kitchen restaurant, and this is its logo:

The martlet is, of course, a well-known charge in English heraldry, appearing as a cadency mark for the arms of a fourth son, and also as a charge in itself, for example in the canting arms of Arundel.*

The other connection to heraldry lies in the art used to decorate one wall of the restaurant, line drawing artworks that depict various images taken from the town's heraldry.

So you can have a meal in a restaurant named after an heraldic charge while looking at art that takes its inspiration from heraldry! (Well, maybe you can; it may be quite a while before I can get to Manchester. But trust me, if I can make it there, I know exactly where I'm having lunch!)

A couple of articles about the newly-opened The Martlet Kitchen can be found on-line at:

https://themanc.com/boroughs/the-martlet-rochdale-town-hall-new-opening/

https://www.manchesterworld.uk/lifestyle/food-and-drink/the-martlet-review-rochdale-town-hall-4797310

* I know, I know! "Martlet" sounds nothing like "Arundel". But the cant, the pun on the surname, crosses linguistic borders, because in French a swallow, or martlet, is called a hirondelle, which does sound a lot like "Arundel".

The Hidden Heraldic Jewel in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

Please read all the way (or just go) to the end to read the moral of this post.

Tucked away in the vestry of All Saints Church in Kirk Deighton, and thus out of sight to the visiting public, was this heraldic gem.

I recommend that you click on the image above to see the full-size version; there's a lot of detail that you're going to miss just looking at the photo above.

The two central panels contain the Ten Commandments.

Below the panel, and attached to the frame of the door into the Vestry is this:

It reads: “The Panel above was restored in 1957. The Ten Commandments are in a version earlier than 1611. The Arms on the left are of ‘Manners’ and those on the right are of ‘Manners and DeRoos’ [properly, ‘De Ros’]. The castles are in France and were besieged by Henry VIII.”

The Manners arms on the left are blazoned: Or two bars azure a chief gules, a crescent for difference. (Yes, I am aware that the azure portions of this shield, and the azure portions of the other shield, look more vert. But they are supposed to azure, so that's how I've blazoned them) The crest is: A peacock in his pride proper.

The Manners-DeRos arms on the right are blazoned: Quarterly of sixteen: 1, Or two bars azure a chief quarterly azure and gules in the first and fourth two fleur-de-lis or on the second and third a lion passant guardant or (Manners); 2, Gules three water bougets argent (de Ros); 3, Gules three Catherine wheels argent (Espec); 4, Azure a Catherine wheel or (Belvoir); 5, Gules a fess between six crosses crosslet or (Beauchamp); 6, Checky or and azure a chevron ermine (Bellomonte [Newburgh]*); 7, Gules a chevron between ten crosses patty argent (Berkeley); 8, Or a fess between two chevrons sable (Lisle); 9, Gules a lion passant argent (Fitzgerald [Lynsley]); 10, Gules in pale three lions passant guardant or a bordure argent (Holland, Earl of Kent); 11, Argent a saltire engrailed gules (Tiptoft); 12, Or a lion rampant gules (Charleton, Baron Powys); 13, Argent a fess between two bars gemels gules (Badlesmere); 14, Checky argent and gules (Vaux [Vaux of Gillesland]); 15, Gules an eagle displayed within a bordure argent (Todeni [Albini ancient]); and 16, Or two chevrons within a bordure gules (Albini [Daubeney]).**

The De Ros crest (Fitz-Gerald-De Ros, Baron De Ros) is: [On a chapeau gules turned up ermine] A peacock in his pride proper.

The green (or blue?) triangle things around the crest in each painting is simply a cord from which the shiels "hangs", running through two golden rings at the top and then down to behind the helm.

* Bellomonte is an old or latinized form of Beaumont, and this great family was associated with a lordship in Normandy called ‘le Neubourg’ which was owned by Henry Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick, who was alternatively known as Henry de Newburgh.

** The identification of all of these quarters was assisted by reference to the website of Bottesford Living History, specifically the page on Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland (https://www.bottesfordhistory.org.uk/content/catalogue_item/bottesford-local-history-archive/heraldry-st-mary-virgin-botteford/edward-manners-3rd-earl-rutland), which has a key to all of the quarters on this shield. (That said, I had already been able to identify 11 of the quarters by my own research, but it was nice to have confirmation that I had correctly identified those quarters.)

The change of the chief from gules to quarterly was an honorable augmentation by King Henry VIII to Thomas Manners at the time of his creation as Earl of Rutland, in recognition of his descent in the maternal line from Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, a descendant of King Edward III on both his father’s and his mother’s sides.

And now, the Moral of this post:

Always talk to the people who work in a building that has heraldry on display, in this case, the Rector and his wife. Because they know where some of these "hidden gems" are located, out of the public view, and if you express an interest, they are generally more than happy to share them with you. If I hadn't mentioned, while taking photographs of just about everything in the church interior for my wife, that I personally was interested in the heraldry displayed there, I never would have been offered to see this heraldic Ten Commandments panel. And what a loss for me, and for you, that would have been!

An Armorial Memorial in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

There are several memorials to different individuals on the walls of All Saints Church in the village of Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, but only one of them has a coat of arms on it.

That sole armorial memorial is to the memory of Clement Victor Stillingfleet (1873-1966), Rector of Kirk Deighton 1914-1949) and his wife, Mabel Constance Palethorpe (1870-1963). They married November 22, 1899 in Edgbaston, St Bartholomew, Warwickshire (the marriage record indicates that she was a widow at that time), and the couple had three children: Geoffrey, Edward, and Mabel.

Rector Stillingfleet was the son of Rev. Henry James William Stillingfleet and his wife, Victorine Agassiz. (Victorine was born in Paris, and was a naturalized British subject.)

These arms are blazoned: Argent on a fess sable between three fleurs-de-lis gules three leopard's faces argent langued gules.

Oddly enough, the York family of Stillington bears the arms: Gules on a fess argent between three leopard's faces or three fleurs-de-lis sable, an interesting rearrangement of the Stillingfleet charges and colors. (It's just that sort of serendipitous finding that keeps me researching in books like Papworth's Dictionary of British Armorials and Burke's General Armory. Because you just never know when you might find exactly this sort of similarity of arms between two families with different but somewhat similar surnames.)

Real Heraldry in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

So last time we looked at some "almost" heraldry in All Saints Church, namely, an anchor, two pelicans in their piety, and a Lamb of God (Agnus Dei).

Well, today we get to find one of those "almost heraldry" charges on a real coat of arms. (Please click on the image below to go to the full-size photograph, where you can see these arms in greater clarity and detail.)

This plaque lists the Rectors of Kirk Deighton from the 13th Century.

And at the top, we see a coat of arms: Argent on a saltire gules two keys in saltire wards upwards or on a chief gules a Holy Lamb (Agnus Dei) proper. The arms are surmounted by a bishop's mitre and fibulae, all in gold.

These are the arms of the Diocese of Ripon (Diocese of Ripon and Leeds from 1999 until 2014), a former Church of England diocese, part of the Province of York. Immediately prior to its dissolution, it covered an area in western and northern Yorkshire (which would include the village of Kirk Deighton), as well as the south Teesdale area administered by County Durham which is traditionally part of Yorkshire.

The arms were granted 3 November 1836.

So, going back to my previous post, in this case we don't even have to go so far afield as the Middle Temple, London, to find a coat of arms with an Agnus Dei as a charge. We can simply look at the arms of the diocese of which All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, is a part!