Groundspeak Portal

Hi

I seem to keep seeing interesting looking coat of arms in various places.  Usually, on walls of old buildings but also on other surfaces.  There seems to have been a bit of a resurgence in the last few years in the UK - when Councils 'regenerate' town centres they appear to include them in various places.

I wondered if they would make an interesting cat.  Any thoughts?  Do you have them in the States?  I know other European countries have them.

I guess you could have waymarks with:
a close-up photo
a general area shot
info about where it is / on what it is located
who's coat of arms it is (if known) and
what it contains (lion rampant or whatever!)

Some are old, some are newer, some quite colourful, some faded etc.  I thought it might be fun.

What do you think?

Hi Martlakes,
                      The Coat of Arms catagory proposal get's my vote,I have also come across some of these on my walks,some colourful ones on bridges and the like and some carved in relief on stone work,I can see it being interesting to do the research for the Cof A prior to the submission of the WM.

One day I was walking around my hometown in finland and saw one coat-of-arms of danish consul. I didn't know there was one in our town. I think this would be good category. I would vote for yes.  I think atleast consuls and consulates have these around the world as their signs.  

Well, I've been doing some research - quite a lot of info on Wikipedia and other sites.  See the Glossary page on this site for the definitive list of terms!
http://www.heraldsnet.org/saitou/parker/index.htm

It seems there is an archaic language for describing a coat of arms, called the blazon, and some fascinating history to many coat of arms.  The UK one has been through many changes over the centuries as monarchs claimed different places.  The current one has the lion and unicorn supporting the shield.  Unicorns were apparently quite dangerous creatures and could only be tamed by a virgin!

Anyway, it looks interesting so I will have a go at forming a group and writing a cat.  Any other thoughts, suggestions welcome.

Formed a new group for this: The Heralds.
http://www.waymarking.com/groups/details.aspx?f=1&guid=e5e68351-9200-4b97-a15c-a85497752bf1
Looking for some folk who would be interested in helping writing the cat / being officers etc.
I've found lots of useful info but there's various ways the cat could go so a few more heads would be helpful to work out what would be good.  Also need at least one more officer.
Cheers

I saw an interesting coat of arms on a building just the other day and wondered if I could waymark it.

Lots of municipalities have their own coats of arms.  I've noticed this particulaly for towns in Finland (hello to Small Oaks by the way), who often display the coat of arms on their municipal web pages.

There's plenty to think about here ....

An (slightly silly) extreme example, in the UK the organisation of registered gas installers, CORGI, has a logo of a shield with the word CORGI on it.  Now, that's clearly not a "coat of arms", so waymarking the offices of gas installers would not be wanted, but coming up with the rules could be quite tricky.

Similarly the Harley-Davidson trademark of a shield with the words "Motor Cycles" and a bar with the word "Harley Davidson" doesn't seem to fit in with the spirit of the category, so waymarking motor cycle dealers would be out.

On the other hand you can't disallow all commercial marks, because many will be in the language of heraldry and may have historic roots.  Coats-of-arms were probably (??) early forms of trademarks.

(Thinks ... maybe disallow shields with writing on them, as opposed to heraldic symbols)

What sort of waymarks do you want?  Permanent outdoor displays? 

Would have to be careful re the no writing rule as often the coat of arms will have a motto, e.g. Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense, and others which form an integral part of the design such as Ich Dien on the Prince of Wales Feathers.

Perhaps it could be written as no incorporated trade names or product names.

Thanks Team Sieni for your thoughts (what's wrong with Gas Installers! the Queen has several!)

Where to draw the line is certainly an issue we will need to sort out.  I've been doing some research and in European heraldry, shields (or the  'escutcheon' as we heralds like to call it!) never has writing on.  What we often call a coat of arms turns out to be an 'armorial achievement' - eg like the Queen's with lion and unicorn supporting the shield, with a helmet, crest, crown above, plus motto etc. and we would certainly accept achievements.

Mottos would not be someone's name or a manufacturer's etc but a phrase related to the person or institution the CofA relates to.

In terms of what I'd like to see: definitely permanent CofA / achievements often found on buildings, bridges, doorways, windows, graves, universities, business etc.  Not beer bottles etc!

In the UK we seem to be having a resurgence of CofA with Councils putting them on various signs, litter bins, bus stops etc.  I suppose if people can be bothered to waymark them all, we could include them.  Not sure how to exclude 200 bus shelters in one town, but is anyone going to waymark them all?  Maybe we could limit it to buildings?

Ideally, people would be able to find out something about the history of the CofA and what it represents.  The language and rules of heraldry are quite specific in many ways.  There is usually a good reason why the CofA has a fish and a lion on and a good story to tell.

If anyone would like to join The Heralds and help put the cat together, please do.

First of all. Hello to Team Sieni . Nice to see some finnish in here:)

I think waymarks should have some kind of special intrest to be waymarked others to see that particular coat of arms. I dont think bustops have any other intrest than waiting for a bus. But trying to locate the origin of that coat of arms would be intresting. Does the headquarters of the bus company have this same coat of arms somewhere would be the place to be waymarked. Same should go with other cases where this coat of arms is used as a logo. If one however find this type of busstop with the coat of arms. Could he then log this coat of arms as visited with additional coordinates?

So I'm basicly fore permanet structures, Buildings, Bridges, Grave stones, Statues.

Had to throw this in [from Wikipedia]:

Today's featured picture

The Grenville Diptych was a coat of arms produced between 1822 and 1839 for Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the son of the first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. The diptych shows 719 quarterings of the family which include, among others, ten variations of the English Royal arms, the arms of Spencer, De Clare, Valence, Mowbray, Mortimer and De Grey. Image credit: Unknown

So with 719 quarterings, do you fancy having a go at wrting up the blazon*?! 

I think Richard Plantagenet was a bit of a show-off!


We now have a good group of heralds and we're currently getting our heads round some of the extensive info available.  Hope to start writing the cat soon.


(*Blazon - detailed description allowing the reproduction of the CofA)

martlakes:

We now have a good group of heralds and we're currently getting our heads round some of the extensive info available.  Hope to start writing the cat soon.

Sounds like an interesting category - I've joined.