Flag of Wiltshire
Encyclopedia
There are three flag
designs associated with the English
county of Wiltshire
. Like the proposed flags of many other counties, two of the three have no official status as they were not designed by the College of Arms
. One of the designs, the 'Bustard' flag, was approved by a full meeting of the Wiltshire Council on December 1, 2009, as a County Flag and subsequently registered with the Flag Institute
.
has been commercially available for many years. It represents the council, rather than Wiltshire as a geographical area. In April 2009, the county council was merged with the old district councils of Wiltshire (Kennet, North Wilts, Salisbury and West Wilts) into a new unitary authority
known as Wiltshire Council
, and the arms of all of them passed to the successor authority. New green flags were created which have been flown from council buildings around the county, but these flags are not generally available to the general public.
, including the alternating stripes of green
and white
that represent the grassy down
s of the county and their chalk
underlay. The colours can represent hope, joy and safety (green) and peace (white). Although distinct, the complicated and irregular design has been met with some criticism by flag designers and heraldists.
An image of the Great Bustard
(Otis tarda) stands at the centre of the flag. This bird had been extinct in England since 1832, but is now part of an intensive ten-year breeding programme on Salisbury Plain
. Salisbury Plain, at the heart of the county, is one of only two areas in Great Britain in which the Great Bustard originally lived. On the flag, the male Great Bustard is depicted in gold on a solid green circle to represent the open grassland. The border of the circle, in six sections alternating green and white, represents the stone circle
s of Stonehenge
and Avebury
in the county. The six portions are also represent the six surrounding counties of Gloucestershire
, Oxfordshire
, Berkshire
, Hampshire
, Dorset
and Somerset
.
The technical specification of the flag is that it is a 3:5 ratio
, and is manufactured in green and gold onto a white material.
Although Mike Prior admits that there "is no method or authority to get it accepted as the county flag of Wiltshire, that is all done by public acceptance.", the flag received the support of Wiltshire County Council
, and was flown at Wiltshire County Hall in Trowbridge in June 2007.
The "Great Bustard" flag was first raised in Trowbridge
by Lord Bath in September 2006 and was later flown by Jane Scott
, leader of the former county council, at County Hall, Trowbridge, on 5 June 2007.
At a full meeting of the Wiltshire Council on December 1, 2009, the Great Bustard flag was formally approved as the County Flag.
June 2011 saw the Wiltshire Flag flown for one week above the Department of Communications government building in London. This was highly and positively publicised by Matthew Smith on BBC Wiltshire Radio Breakfast Show.
The White Horse Flag was designed in 2006 by Chrys Fear, who asserted that the white horse symbol as found in the context of hillside chalk carvings
across the county - most famously the Westbury White Horse
and the Cherhill White Horse
- was an image of greater cultural connection to Wiltshire. Fear's design incorporated the sketch of the Cherhill White Horse found in William Plenderleath
's The White Horses of the West of England published in 1885. Fear's design was never offered to the county's officials for their review and approval, but the campaign aimed for the flag's popular adoption by local people and emphasised its free, public and uncopyrighted status. As of May 2010 the website vanished, the campaign apparently over following Wiltshire Council's adoption of the Bustard design.
Flag
A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design that is usually rectangular and used as a symbol, as a signaling device, or decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed by a flag, or to its depiction in another medium.The first flags were used to assist...
designs associated with the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
. Like the proposed flags of many other counties, two of the three have no official status as they were not designed by the College of Arms
College of Arms
The College of Arms, or Heralds’ College, is an office regulating heraldry and granting new armorial bearings for England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
. One of the designs, the 'Bustard' flag, was approved by a full meeting of the Wiltshire Council on December 1, 2009, as a County Flag and subsequently registered with the Flag Institute
Flag Institute
The Flag Institute is a research and documentation centre for flags and flag information, founded on St George's Day, 23 April 1971 by William Crampton and Captain EMC Barraclough CBE RN. Although not an official body, it is the principal advisor and designer of flags to the government of the...
.
Armorial Banner
A banner of the arms of the former Wiltshire County CouncilWiltshire County Council
Wiltshire County Council was the county council of Wiltshire in the South West of England, an elected local Government body responsible for most local government services in the county....
has been commercially available for many years. It represents the council, rather than Wiltshire as a geographical area. In April 2009, the county council was merged with the old district councils of Wiltshire (Kennet, North Wilts, Salisbury and West Wilts) into a new unitary authority
Unitary authority
A unitary authority is a type of local authority that has a single tier and is responsible for all local government functions within its area or performs additional functions which elsewhere in the relevant country are usually performed by national government or a higher level of sub-national...
known as Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council is the unitary authority for most of the county of Wiltshire, in the West of England, the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council and to four districts—Kennet, North Wiltshire, Salisbury, and West Wiltshire—all of which had been created in 1973 and were...
, and the arms of all of them passed to the successor authority. New green flags were created which have been flown from council buildings around the county, but these flags are not generally available to the general public.
Bustard Flag
The "Bustard flag" was created by Mike Prior and designed by Helen Pocock, a graphic designer, in 2007. It is partly based on the flag of the Wiltshire County CouncilWiltshire County Council
Wiltshire County Council was the county council of Wiltshire in the South West of England, an elected local Government body responsible for most local government services in the county....
, including the alternating stripes of green
Green
Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...
and white
White
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
that represent the grassy down
Downland
A downland is an area of open chalk hills. This term is especially used to describe the chalk countryside in southern England. Areas of downland are often referred to as Downs....
s of the county and their chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
underlay. The colours can represent hope, joy and safety (green) and peace (white). Although distinct, the complicated and irregular design has been met with some criticism by flag designers and heraldists.
An image of the Great Bustard
Great Bustard
The Great Bustard is in the bustard family, the only member of the genus Otis. It breeds in southern and central Europe, where it is the largest species of bird, and across temperate Asia...
(Otis tarda) stands at the centre of the flag. This bird had been extinct in England since 1832, but is now part of an intensive ten-year breeding programme on Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in central southern England covering . It is part of the Southern England Chalk Formation and largely lies within the county of Wiltshire, with a little in Hampshire. The plain is famous for its rich archaeology, including Stonehenge, one of England's best known...
. Salisbury Plain, at the heart of the county, is one of only two areas in Great Britain in which the Great Bustard originally lived. On the flag, the male Great Bustard is depicted in gold on a solid green circle to represent the open grassland. The border of the circle, in six sections alternating green and white, represents the stone circle
Stone circle
A stone circle is a monument of standing stones arranged in a circle. Such monuments have been constructed across the world throughout history for many different reasons....
s of Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
and Avebury
Avebury
Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles which is located around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, south west England. Unique amongst megalithic monuments, Avebury contains the largest stone circle in Europe, and is one of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain...
in the county. The six portions are also represent the six surrounding counties of Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
and Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
.
The technical specification of the flag is that it is a 3:5 ratio
Ratio
In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind , usually expressed as "a to b" or a:b, sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two which explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second In mathematics, a ratio is...
, and is manufactured in green and gold onto a white material.
Although Mike Prior admits that there "is no method or authority to get it accepted as the county flag of Wiltshire, that is all done by public acceptance.", the flag received the support of Wiltshire County Council
Wiltshire County Council
Wiltshire County Council was the county council of Wiltshire in the South West of England, an elected local Government body responsible for most local government services in the county....
, and was flown at Wiltshire County Hall in Trowbridge in June 2007.
The "Great Bustard" flag was first raised in Trowbridge
Trowbridge
Trowbridge is the county town of Wiltshire, England, situated on the River Biss in the west of the county, approximately 12 miles southeast of Bath, Somerset....
by Lord Bath in September 2006 and was later flown by Jane Scott
Jane Scott (politician)
Jane Antoinette Scott OBE is an English Conservative politician, Leader of the former Wiltshire County Council from 2003 to 2009 and of its successor the new Wiltshire Council from June 2009....
, leader of the former county council, at County Hall, Trowbridge, on 5 June 2007.
At a full meeting of the Wiltshire Council on December 1, 2009, the Great Bustard flag was formally approved as the County Flag.
June 2011 saw the Wiltshire Flag flown for one week above the Department of Communications government building in London. This was highly and positively publicised by Matthew Smith on BBC Wiltshire Radio Breakfast Show.
White Horse Flag
Hill figure
A hill figure is a large visual representation created by cutting into a steep hillside and revealing the underlying geology. It is a type of geoglyph usually designed to be seen from afar rather than above. In some cases trenches are dug and rubble made from material brighter than the natural...
across the county - most famously the Westbury White Horse
Westbury White Horse
The Westbury or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately east of Westbury in England. Located on the edge of Bratton Downs and lying just below an Iron Age hill fort, it is the oldest of several white horses carved in Wiltshire...
and the Cherhill White Horse
Cherhill White Horse
The Cherhill White Horse is a hill figure on Cherhill Down, 3.5 miles east of Calne in Wiltshire, England. Dating from the late 18th century, it is the third oldest of several such white horses in Great Britain, with only the Uffington White Horse and the Westbury White Horse being older...
- was an image of greater cultural connection to Wiltshire. Fear's design incorporated the sketch of the Cherhill White Horse found in William Plenderleath
William Plenderleath
William Charles Plenderleath was an English Anglican clergyman, author and antiquarian, best remembered for his White Horses of the West of England .-Life:...
's The White Horses of the West of England published in 1885. Fear's design was never offered to the county's officials for their review and approval, but the campaign aimed for the flag's popular adoption by local people and emphasised its free, public and uncopyrighted status. As of May 2010 the website vanished, the campaign apparently over following Wiltshire Council's adoption of the Bustard design.
External links
- [
Wiltshire Flag Institute registration particulars]