There is a coat of arms for Warley but most of its symbolism is spent representing Rowley Regis, Smethwick and West Bromwich and I did not want to have external symbols to Warley in its flag. However, on that said coat of arms is one symbol that is not actually a replication from another coat of arms – a green lion passant and bellow it yellow quarters on the right and left. So I jumped at using this as a starting point.

Warley Flag

I wanted to reference the water tower, though I did not fancy adding blue to the design so I decided to be more inventive with the use of heraldic wavy lines. By rotating the lines to vertical they denote the water held vertically by the tower and the waves themselves are light and dark green. I use the green lion with yellow edging as a centre piece with the yellow quarters on the side. Finally I gave the green lion red claws in honour of the Belgium asylum seekers that Warley hosted in the first world war, as the lion on the Belgian coat of arms is notable for its red claws.

The use of the lion in the flag for Pensnett is truly interesting, the details of which I will explain after my design rationale. The design first began by using the black and green quarters from the local school badge. Once that was decided upon I began to struggle for ideas to put on the flag, eventually I came up with three options: a lion to represent St Luke’s church, a red star to denote Pensnett FC or a Panther to provide a link to Pensnett Panthers football.

Pensnett Flag

This was when I made a discovery of amazing fortune. In heraldry there is a creature called a panther, though in terms of shape it looks exactly like a heraldic lion but it is decorated with spots or something similar and breathes fire from its mouth. I realised that I could use all of my ideas in one unique symbol! So I elected to use my lion passant and decorate it with red stars as a way of symbolising both football teams and the church simultaneously.

So my hat goes off to the lion passant, a supremely meaningful and versatile symbol that it is an honour to use in my designs.

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

Ettingshall Flag

During my earliest researches it seemed clear that Ettingshall lay firmly within the Wolverhampton borough, even coming very close to the centre of the city. However, the deeper that I dug the more muddy the waters became as it turned out that historically Ettingshall was a part of the manor of Sedgley and was formed much further south. Over time the settlement has expanded northwards and that is how the town has come to take on such a wide meaning.

As such my very first ideas which all revolved around a Wolverhampton-centric view of Ettingshall no longer felt fully applicable. Instead I have opted for a design that mixes elements of both ‘old south’ Ettingshall and ‘new north’ Ettingshall. I began by taking inspiration from the blue diamond badge of Ettingshall Park Farm FC who are closer to the south. Originally I intended that there would be a singular blue diamond but felt that the repeating pattern as a field division was both bold and beautiful. The diamonds are edged with a darker blue in order to provide for a stronger contrast with the white background. In the central three diamonds I placed three golden wolf heads, these are taken directly from the coat of arms of the Royal Wolverhampton Hospital – which is often considered to be the extreme north of Ettingshall. The resulting design is pretty, eye-catching and perfectly blends the two identities that Ettingshall has developed over time.

Leamore is the first of my flags to have been developed with the help of local historian Stuart Williams of the Walsall Local History Centre, who also runs the amazingly informative Bloxidge Tallygraph site.

Leamore Flag

The foundation of this design is the black and yellow striped background which is a reference to Leamore Primary School’s bee emblem. In the central black band is featured a yellow Davy Lamp from inside of which is a red glow. The Davy Lamp not only represents the new sculpture of the town but subsequently the towns great mining heritage, Either side of the lamp and the black band are two lions rampant which serve as denotations of Herbert Clarke, a very famous lion tamer who settled in the village for a time. The lions are split down the middle and half coloured red and half black. The red denotes the the red lion pub, now closed, and the black as a further nod to Herbert Clarke whose surname provides a link to ink (owing to the fact that the surname Clarke derives from someone being a scribe).

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

Coats of arms also vary in complexity and this ‘scalability’ itself can give birth to new formats. The purest coat of arms would usually be considered to be the shield on its own, however a lot of extra complexity and realism can be added to this with many of the elements that can surround a shield – the supporters, the crest etc. Also getting simpler coats of arms eventually gave rise to ‘badges’ which are icons that may represent a coat of arms. These can either be inspired by a coat of arms or can be drawn in a heraldic way. The best examples of badges are the red rose of Lancashire, that is also used in many official emblems of that county, or the heraldic thistle of Scotland. These badges were the pre-cursors to modern logos. However modern logos do not feel like objects of heraldic art, so where does the dividing line come and what is the principle that defines it?

The clue may come from the fact that whilst badges and logos are remarkably similar in terms of function, their construction is different: badges differ owing to their being developed in a heraldic way. As such heraldic art should not be considered to be the product of a process, in the way that a painting can be thought of as the image in front of you. Instead, it should be considered in terms of the principles that formed the construction of that image.

So what are these principles? Well heraldry does have a set of technical rules that make coats of arms fit for purpose – like the fact that certain colours are not allowed to touch each other. This means that at a distance colours will remain bold and the design will still be easily visible. On a more semantic side the other main principle is the relevance of the design, ensuring that the final product is packed full of meaning. Thus making the design individually important and connected to its user.

It is important to realise that the technical side of a design is likely to be dependant on the final product, which is why some rules for flag design differ from coats of arms. A lot of the time the technical rules will be the same, because they are reflecting some universal truths, such as dark colours contrast against light colours. However this does leave the fact that the most important principle behind heraldic art is the importance of meaning to a design, with a family of related technical considerations underpinning the designs.

This is probably why some forms of symbols can be thought of as heraldic art even though their creation and development was completely separate from that of European heraldry. This is best exemplified by the Mons of Japan, which whilst looking very unique to Japan, perform a similar function to coats of arms and badges, and in doing so use similar technical considerations but always strive to incorporate strong meaning.

So the definition of heraldic art should be: ”Forms of imagery that seek to incorporate strong principles of identity and relevance, underpinned by technical consideration that whilst being adaptable to particular mediums are bound together by certain universal laws”. In contrast to this is what I think of as corporate art, which takes a more abstract approach. We’ve all seen councils come up with meaningless logos or companies that simply write their name, that is what I’m talking about.

Though it can be very difficult to tell the two apart, it is not like heraldic art is some sort of superior final product. For instance the Mitsubishi logo, which most people would think to be just an abstract shape, is in fact a Japanese Mon and is loaded with relevance and symbolism. And I feel that this helps make a further point: not only have we seen what heraldic art is in this article but we can see how widespread and useful it still is in this world. It is useful and popular exactly because of the principles that define it.

Black Country Flag

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

Wordsley’s flag inspiration also came nearly wholesale from a local primary school with only one small addition and little bit of formatting coming from me. The village is famous for being the location of the Red Glass Cone which sits right next to the canal – such great landmarks would be obvious for anyone designing symbols for the area – and duly they found their way into the schools logo.

Really all I had to do was pick the shades of colours to be used and decide quite what shape the waves of the water should be. As for colour the logo used white, red and blue and all I changed was the shade of blue – darkening it so as to provide a deeper contrast within the design and a bolder flag as a result.

I felt that using more ‘spiky’ waves in the water would be a good way of denoting the historical links that the town has with Stourbridge, this led me to go back to the colour of the water and put alternating bands of lighter blue in as a nod to Kingswinford. That way highlighting the importance of the village as a halfway house between these two important towns.

Finally in Wordsley’s design I felt that it was a bit empty and that the large red triangle that represents the cone in the centre of the design could have something in it. As with Stourbridge and Amblecote nothing could be more appropriate for this glassmaking area than the sunburst symbol that I have derived for the pattern on the bottom of cut glass crystal.

New Invention’s flag was similarly easy to design, though it came as a merger of two sources so it was merely a matter of blending these together. So whilst Wordsley was easy for taking one source and adding a few embellishments this flag required no additions, merely a fusing of two existing sets of symbols.

The New Invention flag design takes the form of a merger between Beacon Primary and New Invention primary school logos. I had always wanted to use a light bulb as the centre-piece of the design owing to its use in comics and cartoons as a symbol for a new idea or thought. This tied in very well will the Beacon Schools badge having a lighthouse. So I used a bulb but added the counter changing red and white areas radiating outwards like light inspired by the Beacon school logo. Further out they zig-zag to represent the jigsaw piece logo of New Invention school. Red, white and blue are also a combination derived from the two schools.

So there we have two flags that were practically invented already!

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

First however we shall look at a design proposal for Old Hill, which also uses the heraldry of a local family as the central premise. The village is nestled between Halesowen, Cradley Heath and Rowley Regis and was included in the ancient Manor of Rowley.

Indeed my first inspiration came from the Rowley Regis coat of arms, in which one of the odder inclusions is a human leg coloured blue. This leg comes from the coat of arms of the Haden family of the significant Haden Hill House in the village, right on the cusp of its border with Halesowen.

So I decided to research the whole coat of arms and courtesy of a book detailing the heraldry of the noble families of Worcestershire in Google Books I was successful. The arms take the form of a blue human leg on the shield with a armoured hand holding an arrow upon the crest. I realised that as the leg was blue on a white background the armour was likely to be white so I could reverse the colour and put it on a blue background for the flag.

Once that had given me the inspiration for colours and the background division I could decide how to position the arm and the leg. As the leg was bent I thought that bending the arms would give a pleasing suggestion of rotational symmetry as well as then ‘fitting’ the two limb ends together. We are left with a design that has some links to local civic heraldry but comes courtesy of a local aristocratic family and the landmark legacy that they have left behind them.

Whitmore Reans’ flag also boasts a prominent nod to a local family, a family that many people from the area may have unwittingly have heard of… Molineux. The family Molineux built the hotel in Whitmore Reans’ that the football ground consequently got its name from. In the design this is represented by the large Moline Cross that is the main symbol in the family coat of arms due to the pronounced similarity between the names Molineux and Moline. I have used a golden colour to help continue the reference to the family arms as well as to the stadium.

This style of cross does not really suite being stretched to fit the 3:5 ratio of a flag so I have left it in the centre at 1:1. In each of the quarters around the cross I have added a horse in a salient (bounding/leaping) position. The combination of the four horses serves as a representation of the racecourse.

Finally comes the family link to the railway heritage with the train wheel placed in the centre of the cross. The colour that has been chosen for the rest of the flag also has an important link to this railway past. The train depot in Whitmore Reans was the Stafford Road works run by the Great Western Railway. For a notable period the depot was an important manufacturer of steam engines and intriguingly the depot was evidentially so proud of its engines that it gave them a slightly different colour scheme from the normal dark green. Instead they painted their locomotives in a more blue-green hue and that has served as inspiration for the colour of the flag here.

So in this entry where we concluded the ‘family’ of railway influenced designs it was only fitting that we featured two designs that were based on the real families that helped build their homes into the villages that they are today – the Molineux’s of Whitmore Reans and the Haden’s of Old Hill.

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

Our dialect is the oldest surviving form of the English language and we can tell this by the strong remnants on Olde English and German that still are in everyday used. Of course the best example is “Ah bist?” for ‘how are you?’ which closely mirrors the German “bist du?”. Plus there is the fact that we still use “bin” for ‘to be/am/is’ as the Germans still so.

So the task is to plumb our rich and ancient dialect to see what unique and distinctive words might be used. I’ve rounded up a couple of possibilities:

Fust – meaning ‘First’. Only really applicable if my design were to be used being the first design for the Black Country. Fust Flag, has some nice alliteration to it though the fact that it ties itself too much to my design means that its suitability in a public vote would be jeopardised.

Wum – meaning ‘Home’. I do like this, on first glance the name ‘Home Flag’ may appear to be a bit nondescript to most but I think this sums up the Black Country very well. It gives a sense of homeliness and as the Black Country is not a territory but a piece of land, it can be a home to anyone that stays here. It evokes the quiet pride of the area as well as the hospitality of its people and that is what makes me warm to it so.

Yampy – meaning ‘Crazy’. This word is often used in a context were it denotes a sense of fun and afterall that is how my designing all started – I had an idea that I thought would be fun. I am a little uneasy that this name can easily have its name twisted to have negative connotations to either the design or the concept.

Fettle – meaning ‘Good Condition’. A nice positive name that also has connotations of tinkering with machinery and thus also subtly references the industrial heritage of the area. However, the name does feel a little forced and as such is not my first choice.

Bostin – meaning ‘Great’. It’s pretty obvious when you think about it, after all ‘bostin’ is the defining word of the Black Country. My only worry is that using this to name a flag design might be a little too self-congratulatory and as such not very ‘British’ in feel or tone.

Of course there is one language related option that is either perfect or abhorrent. The flag could be named after the Brummie-coined nickname for us Black Countrymen – YamYams. I for one have no problem with the origin of the name and it does seem to be very poignant. Nonetheless I am reluctant to use this idea, afterall it is just a new way of saying ‘Black Country Flag’ which to me makes it feel less like a special name for the flag but more of  a local translation.

I hope that these suggestions may have got your minds racing with ideas and it would be great to hear them so do get in touch!

Black Country Flag

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

First up is Quarry Bank, a small village that clings to the steep hill that divides Brierley Hill and Cradley Heath. This is a simple flag that keeps things elegant and bold – the diagonal dividing line comes from the hill and the nail ‘asterisk’ in the top left is inspired by a stained glass window in the village’s church.

The difficultly came when trying to decide on the colours for the town flag, a problem made more tricky due to the lack of any football, cricket or rugby teams to supply inspiration from their logos or strips. The village does have a sports club though, for tennis, and this came to my rescue providing yellow and black as representative colours.

The second flag today is Oxley, just north of Wolverhampton city centre, and the main source of inspiration comes from the coat of arms used by the towns golf club. From the crest of the arms it was impossible to deny use of the Ox head to help reference the towns name, similarly I loved the look of the crossed arrows that put me in mind of the letter ‘X’. This coat of arms also provides the blue and white colours and the diamond shapes on the sides of the flag.

Yet the flag does have an important element from another source. Last week I showcased Bushbury which was famous for its rail shed, and that is a heritage that Oxley shares too. As such I decided to use the same wheel motif but coloured in the orange and green of the Great Western Railway who founded the Oxley shed. These fitted nicely into the diamonds, with the orange colouring preventing the green and blue from blending together.

In two weeks time will come the final design in this group of Wolverhampton Railway suburbs – Whitmore Reans.

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

Shelfield is a small village in the north east of the Black Country and when you research its history it becomes immediately apparent quite how central and important the local school has been. The school in question is the Shelfield Community Academy, though it has been through several different guises through the decades. An award winning video from that very college charts the history of the school in the town over the years including how hard the locals have campaigned to save the school from demise in the past. It seems like the college is the centre point for the entire town and it is obvious that as a result this should be reflected in any flag design.

Fortunately the schools logo is both heraldic and easy to find, being a blue background with a yellow diagonal band. There are three red shells on the band and three yellow fleur-de-lys in both the upper and lower areas of the field behind the band. Two issues were apparent with this, firstly I do not want to use an existing logo without modification owing to the legal problems that can create and secondly I discovered a second, older version of the school badge that whilst being very similar had a horizontal band. This second problem was more pressing as I did not know how to reconcile the two versions into one flag.

Then I looked at the Shelfield Rangers football team logo. The team is linked to the school as they play at the schools grounds and have a similar logo, though it has interesting differences. The bend is on the other diagonal, there are no fleur-de-lys and the colours are different (being a blue band on a white background). After mulling over the problem for a while I thought that this presented a wonderful opportunity to use both bands and utilise more shells at the expense of fleur-de-lys to reference the name ‘Shelfield’.

As a result the school band and general colours do take priority as is only fitting for such an important institution. The football club’s band passes behind the school band, but the light blue and white colours complement the rich blue of the background perfectly, creating a nicely balanced flag in terms of construction and colour.

The second town today is Bushbury, north of Wolverhampton centre, which is named after Bushbury Hill. When researching as to how I could reference this important hill I came up with a blank. No amount of internet searching seemed to bring up any relevant logos until I tried facebook out of desperation and low and behold I discovered the logo for the disbanded Bushbury Hill school – an indigo blue cross on a lighter purple background.

This is a bit of an odd choice of colours heraldically but that oddness makes it quite unique and appealing, as well as the colours being really quite pretty. So for these reasons, as well as being able to reference the hill, this schools badge became the main component in the town’s flag design.

The finishing touch is one that begins a small ‘family’ of designs, in this case reflecting the Wolverhampton train industry. Bushbury was the site of an important engine shed for the London and North Western Railway – important for the country and important for the town as a source of employment and pride. As such, a black steam engine wheel edged in white is added to the middle of the cross to represent the shed, the colours being the livery colours of the railway.

The next few weeks will see the two other members of this flag family being showcased.

Article is written by Philip Tibbetts, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear

As I’ve mentioned before I have taken a great deal of influence from visits to Belgium. The lowland countries of The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg have contributed greatly to the development of heraldic art and this is beautifully clear when looking at their flag culture.

When you do visit any town in Belgium and you find the town hall you’ll also see a number of flags flying side by side – and importantly they are different flags! As example here is a photo that I took when on holiday to Leuven (the ancient University town and centre of brewing in Belgium) late last year.

With Belgium having such a deep and extensive heraldic tradition not only does the country have arms and a flag but so does it constituent areas, counties and even towns. The flags on the town hall in the photo show that they proudly display their Leuven (red with white horizontal stripe), Brabant (yellow lion on black), Flemish (black lion on yellow), Belgian (black, red and yellow vertical stripes) and European identities (yellow stars on blue).

A criticism often directed at flags and flag waving is that it can be very jingoistic and even xenophobic – like when certain groups appropriate flags and try and load often very negative political spin onto them. This can be perfectly true, the American flag culture that focuses so greatly on one flag can easily been seen as a bit over the top and insular. However flying different flags like this is the ideal way to combat jingoism. This is because this method is far more inclusive and friendly. Whilst I was in Belgium on that holiday most of the flags had no relevance to me as a Halesonian, Black Countryman and Briton, but the inclusion of the European Flag still made me feel welcome.

The method also allows the local (in this case a Leuven citizen) to be more understanding about their place in the world. The use of a unique flag for that town still makes the town special but flying it with others provides a sense of being a part of one big and rich tapestry rather than one place being better than anywhere else.

Finally, the use of flags side by side allows for a wider sense of pride as hinted at in the previous paragraph. As part of a big and rich heraldic tapestry if there is one particular place that you are proud of (say for instance your country) then the flags that fly next to it will gain some prestige simply by association. For example you can be proud of a level ‘up’ because it includes the constituent of which you are proud, or you can be proud of the level ‘down’ because it goes into the make up of the larger entity.

The combination of these effects creates a culture that actively discourages jingoism through making visitors feel welcome, giving locals a wider sense of identity and sharing out emotions of civic pride. It balances the need to be unique and individual with the fact that at a basic level we are all just humans walking around the surface of the planet – and we should be proud of both of these elements.

That is why that I think it is so important that I not only push for a Black Country tartan but also for the town flags – that way, where possible, community, county, country and continent flags can fly proudly side by side – bringing social positives to the wider world as well as the area itself.

Blakenhall (and not Blakenall!) is situated just south of Wolverhampton and has a very close bond with its neighbour, in no small part by being home to the Royal Wolverhampton School – whose coat of arms I have used as a base to my design but modified to reflect the history of the town.

I have taken the blue background with three golden orbs from the school arms but rather than leave the orbs plain they were ideally suited to being modified to include sunbeams, which of course denotes the Sunbeam motor car company that was once established in the region. The chevron, whilst being an element in the Royal School’s arms is also a common element amongst the arms of the other local schools, it is kept white to be bold against the vivid gold and blue background. As a final touch a black wolf head is added to the top of the chevron in order to symbolise the shared history that the town has with Wolverhampton Wanderers who originated from St Luke’s school in Blakenhall.

Bentley has a big historical claim to fame despite the fact that there is not much physical evidence left of it. However there is some notable heraldic evidence that exists and it only seemed right to base the Bentley flag on this.

When King Charles II was escaping after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester he stayed in Bentley Hall, which sadly no longer exists. Then a woman called Jane Lane helped smuggle the King to Bristol and then out of the country, she returned to Bentley but discovered that her role in the Kings escape had been discovered. She subsequently fled the country as well, joining the King’s court in exile. After the Kings restoration he rewarded Jane with the prestigious right to augment her coat of arms with the three royal lions of England in the canton.

As such, to commemorate this important moment in history the Bentley flag that I have designed is a stylised form of the augmented version of Jane Lane’s personal arms. I felt it was important to use the augmented arms in order to fully capture the reference to  these historic events but this caused some difficultly. Her arms had not been designed to incorporate a canton originally and as such when it was added the design looked a little awkward and this effect was only increased when transferring the design to the rectangular shape of a flag. As such I decided that the arms would need to be stylised by simplifying it. So I removed the chevron as that was the main element that physically clashed with the new canton and just made the overall look a bit too busy as well. This leaves a background of blue and yellow with counter changed stars (counter changing is where the background and foreground colours swap over areas of the flag or shield). In the canton I have added one royal lion as a reference to these important events and the role that a child of Bentley had in them, I found the inclusion of three lions  made the one corner of the flag look too cluttered and disproportionate to the rest of the flag.

So there we have two flags that show history at work in a design in different ways. One design references its comparatively modern history that all helped to develop the town at breathtaking pace and bring it to the fore of British football and the motor industry. Whilst the other design references one mighty historical event where the future of the country hung for one moment upon a small town in the Black Country.

Article is written by Phillip Tibbets, researcher of Heraldic Art and co-founder of Heartland Heritagewear