Monday 5 August 2019

Supporters of the Day: Machinery

Our last week of Supporters of the Day will be the category the French call soutiens - which is to say inanimate objects used as supporters, the rarest of our three categories in Scottish heraldry.

We start with a very strange one, but great fun: Heriot Watt College (now University), granted in 1958 and presumably painted by Herald Painter, Nora Mary Gordon.



The blazon makes clear that the brickwork is the compartment while the supporters are: a beam-engine, frame Sable, cylinder, fly-wheel and beam Vert, the cylinder and wheel garnished Gules, the piston rod and garnishing of the beam Argent, guiding rod Gules garnished Argent.