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| Flag of Hampshire (Flag Institute Facebook Page) |
British County flags are becoming more and more popular, England and Wales are pretty well covered, however plenty of work still needs to be done in Scotland, as only four of the counties on the mainland have registered flags. I am naturally a little bit disappointed that the British County flags campaign leaves out Northern Ireland, although some might point out the Gaelic Colours of Irish Counties I have stated before that these are not county flags as they don't really exist outside the GAA, and are impractical as they are nearly all bicolours which are not even unique to that county! A place where flags are at best sensitive i think that Cross Community county flags(and other civic flags) would be advantageous in Northern Ireland as proved by the former flag used by the former Down District Council.
The Hampshire Flag is a red and yellow horizontal bicolour with a saxon crown on the top bar and the Lancashire rose on the bottom. It was conceived by Jason Saber with help from Brady Ells. The rose and crown are historic symbols associated with the county said to be traced to the Battle of Agincourt but arguably dates to the Earl of Lancashire who held estates in the county under Henry III. Red and Yellow colours were related to the historic uniform colours of the Royal Hampshire Regiment and are often still used by county sports teams.
The flag bears some resemblance to the county council arms granted in 1992 although it uses the St Edwards Crown rather than a historic Saxon one.
On a side note I've changed the name of the blog as I want to write on wider subjects that are of interest to me not just flags, although flags will continue to be a subject of this blog.
