Talk:Coat of arms of the London Borough of Camden

Latest comment: 5 years ago by MinorProphet in topic Elephants

Elephants edit

Hi, at the end of a somewhat frustrating wiki-edit session a few days ago, I made a hasty edit which was correctly reverted. Stated in a more measured fashion, my question concerns the following phrases. Firstly:

The elephant (which should be black according to the blazon and not grey as in nature) is taken from the arms of Marquess Camden...

Why draw attention to elephant's colour in the first place? It is indeed sable [and not 'black'] according to the blazon. There is no grey (gris?) tincture, anyway. Would anyone expect any heraldic beast to resemble "the real thing?" To take an extreme example, what colour is an hippogriff or a martlet 'in nature'? I propose that the parenthetical phrase be deleted. And secondly:

...hanging from each is a heraldic fountain (which should be depicted in silver and blue since no other tinctures are specified for them in the blazon of the Camden arms).

Well, the fountains are indeed depicted in the correct tinctures: again, why complain ? Does someone think that they should they be depicted in vert and purpure? As reference to the Fountain (heraldry) article makes abundantly clear, these devices are only ever argent and azure. I'm not surprised that "no other tinctures are specified for them in the blazon of the Camden arms", since anything else would apparently be in error. I again propose that the parenthetical phrase be deleted, thus:

  1. The elephant is taken from the arms of Marquess Camden, since Camden Town...
  2. ...and hanging from each is a heraldic fountain. The three mullets of each collar...

Furthermore, the sentence "The fountains reflects the name of Holborn, originally 'old bourne' or may represent the canals and waterways of the borough." is a grammatical failure ("The fountains reflects"), appears to need a comma after bourne, and either an etymological source or at least a [citation needed] tag.

PS I used to work in offices on Rosebery Ave., a stone's throw (as an heraldic crow flies, at any rate) from the old magnificent Finsbury Town Hall. >MinorProphet (talk) 18:09, 3 April 2019 (UTC)Reply