There are three

flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...

designs associated with the English county of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

. 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 The College of Arms, or Heralds' College, is a royal corporation consisting of professional officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the British Sover ...

. One of the designs, the "Bustard Flag", was approved by a full meeting of the Wiltshire Council on 1 December 2009, as a county flag and subsequently 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 ...

Armorial banner

A banner of the arms of the former

Wiltshire County Council Wiltshire County Council (established in 1889) 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. As a result of the 2009 restructur ...

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 A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

known as

Wiltshire Council Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and the ...

, 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 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

, including the alternating stripes of green and white that represent the grassy downs of the county and their

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

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 The great bustard (''Otis tarda'') is a bird in the bustard family, the only member of the genus ''Otis''. It breeds in open grasslands and farmland from northern Morocco, South and Central Europe, to temperate Central and East Asia. European po ...

(''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 is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wit ...

. Salisbury Plain, at the heart of the county, is one of only two areas in Great Britain in which the great bustard originally lived, the other being the sandy

breckland Breckland in Norfolk and Suffolk is a 39,433 hectare Special Protection Area (SPA) under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. The SPA partly overlaps the 7,544 hectare Breckland Special Area of Conservation. As a la ...

s of eastern England (

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...

and

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

). 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 A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The ...

s of

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connec ...

and

Avebury Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in ...

in the county. The six portions also represent the six surrounding counties of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) 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. The county town is the city of ...

, Oxfordshire,

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Ber ...

, Hampshire,

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

and

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

. The technical specification of the flag is that it is a 3:5

ratio In mathematics, a ratio shows how many times one number contains another. For example, if there are eight oranges and six lemons in a bowl of fruit, then the ratio of oranges to lemons is eight to six (that is, 8:6, which is equivalent to the ...

, 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

, and was flown at Wiltshire County Hall in Trowbridge in June 2007. The Bustard Flag was first raised in

Trowbridge Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England, on the River Biss in the west of the county. It is near the border with Somerset and lies southeast of Bath, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of Swindon and 20 miles (32 km) southeas ...

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 1 December 2009, the 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 BBC Radio Wiltshire is the BBC's local radio station serving the English county of Wiltshire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at Prospect Place in Swindon. According to RAJAR, the station had a weekly audi ...

radio breakfast show.

White Horse Flag

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 Westbury or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately east of Westbury in Wiltshire, England. Located on the edge of Bratton Downs and lying just below an Iron Age hill fort, it is the oldest ...

and the

Cherhill White Horse 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 Hor ...

– 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 Charles Plenderleath (2 June 1831 – 1 April 1906) was an English Anglican clergyman, author and antiquarian, best remembered for his ''White Horses of the West of England'' (1885, 2nd edition 1892). Life Born at Clifton, Bristol, Plend ...

's ''The White Horses of the West of England'' published in 1885"Plenderleath's sketches"
wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk. Retrieved on 8 August 2008 placing it on a green background. 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.

References

External links

* Flag Institute registration particulars {{DEFAULTSORT:Flag Of Wiltshire Culture in Wiltshire

Armorial banner

Bustard Flag

White Horse Flag

See also

References

External links