The Shropshire flag is the county flag of

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

. It was registered with the

Flag Institute The Flag Institute is a UK membership organisation headquartered in Kingston upon Hull, England, concerned with researching and promoting the use and design of flags. It documents flags in the UK and internationally, maintains a UK Flag Regi ...

in March 2012 and officially became the county's flag on 19 April 2013. __TOC__

History

The flag is a banner of the arms of the former Shropshire (or Salop) County Council which were awarded in 1895. The leopards' faces, referred to as "loggerheads" locally, are a traditional emblem for Shropshire and several of its towns. It is believed that the loggerheads derive from the

Royal Arms of England The royal arms of England are the arms first adopted in a fixed form at the start of the age of heraldry (circa 1200) as personal arms by the Plantagenet kings who ruled England from 1154. In the popular mind they have come to symbolise the ...

and that the blue and yellow colours represent those of

Roger de Montgomery Roger de Montgomery (died 1094), also known as Roger the Great, was the first Earl of Shrewsbury, and Earl of Arundel, in Sussex. His father was Roger de Montgomery, seigneur of Montgomery, a member of the House of Montgomerie, and was probably ...

, Earl of Shrewsbury. Loggerheads also appeared on the Shrewsbury town arms, themselves first recorded in 1623, solidifying their connections to the local area. The name is thought to have originated from the practice of carving such a design on the head of the log used as a battering ram. The "gold" erminois aspect differentiates the county arms/flag from those of its county town.British County Flags
Shropshire Flag The flag (with the short-lived "white" ermine pattern instead of the erminois) was flown above the

Department for Communities and Local Government The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), formerly the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for housing, communities, local governme ...

in April 2011 as part of a scheme to promote traditional

English counties The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...

. On 23 July 2019, the flag of Shropshire was flown among others in

Parliament Square Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contai ...

in celebration of Historic County Flags Day.

Design

Erminois, three piles issuant two from chief and one from base each bearing a leopard's head. The

Pantone Pantone LLC (stylized as PANTONE) is a limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, notably graphi ...

colours for the flag are: *Reflex Blue *Yellow *Black

References

External links

* Flag Institute – Shropshire Shropshire

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