Middlesex Coat of Arms Inside the Supreme Court of the UK Building

Last time, we saw some of the representations of the arms of Middlesex (or more properly, of the former County Council of Middlesex), granted by the College of Arms in 1910, which appear on the exterior of the Supreme Court building (formerly, the Middlesex Guildhall).

The Middlesex arms, as I will refer to them hereafter, features three "seaxes" (notched swords) on a red background, a symbol of the Anglo-Saxons, with a Saxon crown added in the 1910 grant to differentiate it from Essex's arms. The coat of arms was granted to the Middlesex County Council and is based on traditional heraldry associated with the historic Kingdom of the Middle and East Saxons. (That this "traditional heraldry" didn't exist at the time of those kingdoms is a quibble I'm not going to get into. Heraldry as we understand it appeared later; let's just go ahead and say that these are "attributed arms", and move along.)

Having now passed through the main door and into the interior of the building, we find many more representations of the Middlesex arms inside.

Painted:

Cast in bronze on a WWI Memorial:

In stained glass. Most of the building's stained glass windows were produced in 1913 by Abbott and Co of Fleetwood, Lancaster. (We will discuss the arms on the right in a later post.)

Carved in wood:

And carved in stone, in a plaque commemorating the laying of the foundation stone of the building in 1912. The stone also displays the Royal Arms at the top, and two other personal coats of arms at the bottom, flanking the Middlesex arms. Here, too, we will discuss the personal arms in a later post.

All those different media, all displaying the same coat of arms, Gules three seaxes in pale below a Saxon crown or, the arms of Middlesex.

All in all, what a display of civic pride, both inside and outside of the building!