Stroud Coat of Arms

To commemorate their Bicentary Celebrations in 1960, the Stroud Brewery Company Limited generously bore the expense of obtaining a Grant of Arms for the Urban District Council of Stroud. Mr A D Cook, the Company's artist and a member of the Heraldry Society, was entrusted with the preparation and design of the Coat of Arms.

The following is the official heraldic description of the Coat of Arms:

"The Blazon is Vert a Bendlet Wavy Argent between six Billets Gules each fimbriated Or.

The Crest, on a Wreath alternately Argent and Vert and Argent and Gules a Demi Man Proper habited in the Arms Gules a Fesse Chequy Or and Azure in dexter chief an Annulet Gold.

Mantling, Vert and Gules doubled Argent.

The Motto, Persevera."

Historical Notes on the choice of the design of the Coat of Arms

The abundance of water attracted weavers into the surrounding valleys and Stroud grew to become the centre famous for cloth of exceptional quality, among them the famous Stroud scarlet. The lengths of this cloth were dried in the fields and several historians have commented on the appearance of the landscape in and around Stroud, in their day. The vicarage was built by the Webb family and still has the clothiers mark over the porch. A painting in the Museum in the Park shows a panorama from Rodborough Fort, with large areas of red cloth spread out in the green fields or hung on the tenters.

The design of the shield is based on this idea. The silver wavy band represents the water, on which the trade of the area, and therefore the growth of the town, depended. The "field" of the shield is green representing the fields and the red billets the cloths laid out to dry. The gold outlines are required by heraldic laws to prevent colour being put on colour.

Stroud was an insignificant village in the fourteenth century, included in the manor of Lypiatt and part of Bisley Hundred, with the main church at Bisley. In 1395 at the death of a Kinsman, Richard Whittington, the celebrated "Dick" Whittington, later four times Mayor of London, became Lord of the Manor. So far as is known Richard Whittington was born at Pauntley. The Whittingtons remained in possession for about a century. They also held Rodborough, in Minchinhampton Hundred. The south aisle and porch of the old chapel, which used to stand on the site of the present Parish Church of St Laurence, was built about 1450, the Whittington arms being carved on the porch. Thomas Whittington showed his interest by being buried in his chapel of Stroud instead of the mother church of Bisley and he endowed the chapel with property and, what was in those days a considerable sum of money.

Because of their certain identification with early Stroud, a knight of the Whittington family was considered for the crest. Because of the romance of Dick Whittington, and the example to succeed by perseverance, the motto PERSEVERA was adopted.