A Pursuivant for Father Christmas?

My wife, Sandy, has just broken up from school and, as always for the Christmas season, she brings home with her copious amounts of Christmas cards and presents from both colleagues and pupils. One Christmas card in particular caught my eye this year and I reproduce it below for your (heraldic) enjoyment. To my eye (though not shared by Sandy!) here we have a reindeer wearing the tabard of a pursuivant. Clearly his master bears the arms Or, a mullet Gules.



Merry Christmas ;-)

Great Minds Think Alike ?

I was talking to a friend on the telephone this morning and the subject of the arms and badge of the new Cheshire East Council cropped up. I have always maintained that the simple design of a garb encircled by an eastern crown for the badge was inspirational and I was saying so to my friend this morning. I was also musing that when I first saw the design I thought that it was somewhat familiar but couldn't put my finger on it when he reminded me about the very early logo I used for the Cheshire Heraldry web site way back in 2004. The design I used back then had totally slipped my mind (it's an age thing!) but, having been reminded, I checked (the image can still be seen by using the internet's way back machine provided by web.archive.org - click here to see it) and now remember choosing a simple garb encircled by a crest coronet and choosing to break the tincture rules and thus claim it as a logo and avoid it being thought of as an unauthorised badge. If my reader will allow, I will indulge my pride (just this once) by proclaiming that not only do great minds think alike but perhaps on this occasion at least I can also claim to have got there first.  

Cholmondeley Hatchment

In the previous post to this I reported the completion of the image for Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley in the visitations of 1663 and by happy coincidence almost at the same time I received permission from David Truzzi-Franconi to use the image of a Cholmondeley hatchment he completed some time ago. I was going to post the image David provided but then I realised that I actually had a photograph of the hatchment is situ at Cholmondeley Castle so decided to use that one instead.



The hatchment illustrates the arms of Hugh Cholmondeley, 6th Marquess of Cholmondeley and his wife, Lavinia Margaret Leslie. The dexter portion, with the arms of Cholmondeley, is shown with a black background to indicate that the 6th Marquess is deceased.

David, who is well known to the English Officers of Arms,  is an experienced and accomplished artist.

His website can be viewed at http://www.heraldryandcalligraphy.com and http://www.truzzi.co.uk

Latest update: Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley

Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley  Arms: Quarterly
1. Gules, in chief two esquires helmets Argent and in base a garb Or.
2. Lozengy Argent and Azure, a bend Gules, fretty Or. [Cheney]
3. Argent three capons Sable. [Capenhurst]
4. Quarterly Argent and Gules, in the second and third quarters a fret Or. [Dutton]
5. Argent, on a bend Gules three escarbuncles Or. [Thornton]
6. Vert a cross engrailed Ermine. [Kingsley]
7. Or, a saltire Sable. [Helsby]
8. Azure, on a chevron between three garbs Or, a crescent for cadency. [Hatton]
9. Azure, an estoile within the horns of a crescent Argent. [Minshull]

Crest: A demi-griffin segreant Sable, holding in the claws a helmet as in the arms Argent.                                       

Hugh, born 1661, created baron Cholmondeley of Witch Malbank 10th April 1689.

Not Heraldry but definitely genealogy :-)

This post is a little bit self indulgent but I make no apologies for announcing the fact that I have just become a grandfather. My daughter, Phoebe, has given us a gorgeous granddaughter. A very warm welcome to Matilda Rose who, at 7lb 11oz, was safely delivered at 11:08 p.m. on Tuesday 7th December 2010.

Whoopee!