Now then, can everyone put their thinking caps on?

Haesten posted this over on Historum, asking what the coat of arms is and what the motto means. I did succeed in tracking the actual site of the building to Northumberland Street in Newcastle on Tyne, but what it represents is beyond me.
Ortus = birth and Nova = new, that is as for as I got;

Three choughs in heraldry usually signify the surname Coats - but that is used in Scotland so the Google search do say. Silver (argent) choughs had another signifcance to be looked at. Just to cloud the waters further, choughs are called bekitts after St Thamas a B. That aqua...... word suggests  something watery but what?

Second word probably "aquerque"? Tried "Ortus et aquer" in Google translate (it struggles with "-que" and "-ve"), got "and rising water". Wonder if this as local water company building in the past. Can't make out last word. Any suggestions?

Theory - last word "salus" or cognate, giving something like "the new and original safe water", might well be Whittle Dean Water Company.


(edited - to speculate)

You cracked it, Gil, I think. one line of the Dean family England has 3 choughs, wavy line with similar inclusions and the foliage is used about most of the dean shields. Well done! But I must admit in truth to knowing damn all about heraldry - only enough to follow the clues. There is a lot of jesting in the art. I found - during this search - a borough that had ref to its sewage farms on its shield.

That seems a fairly reasonable answer, Gil.

You also need to watch out for the non-Latin "Latin". For example the Bath Arms (pub I used to frequent in Brighton) displays the arms of Bath (surprise surprise) with the appalling alternative "Floreat Bathon" motto, not the official and linguistically correct "Aquae Sulis"

The puzzle intrigued me too. From the heraldic side the mystery surrounds the use of the late Latin "aquero-" (the "u" at the end complicates things), which if it is that usage could be taken to mean lament/sorrow or for that matter might simply be a surname (with or without the "u" which is retained in the name today in Portugal/Brazil). The missing last word is a real bummer as the motto makes no sense at all without it anyway. From the symbolism point of view the clues are also more likely to point to a family rather than a company, though this is by no means certain until at least the motto can be deciphered. The closed visor on the helmet surmounting the crest indicates a gentleman of lower rank (lower than lord) but beyond that is not specifically enough applied in heraldry to yield a clue in itself. The zig-zag line however specifically represents the sea, and is used only by families whose prestige was derived from that source, be it through a trade or military connection. The five anchors however are not necessarily nautical at all, indicating normally religious steadfastness (some bishops, or for that matter a martyr or two in the family history for example, could give rise to its use). The three birds (too indistinct to match any one specific norm) relate normally to domesticity and household - used in instances for example where a family has held a hereditary seat in one location over a very long time, and which sees itself as the focal point of a large dependent community. All together therefore the symbolism points to an individual or a company who/which wishes to advertise longevity, stability, strong religious attachment, resonsibility for the welfare of an extended family in the feudal sense, and low to middling aristocratic rank. Typical aspirations for new money big-wigs in the 19th century, in other words, as much as it also could indicate an old established family. And of course it could still be a water company, though I could find no record of Whittle Dean/Dene having offices in or off Northumberland Street, having gone through several gazettes from 1845 onwards.

Tracing the building's history was equally inconclusive. The doorway became the "posh" entrance to the Queen's Hall in 1913 (later Queen's Cinema), giving access to the gods and the expensive seats via a long gallery (once an alley connecting Queen's Square to Northumberland Street), so that might explain why the fancy portal was intentionally retained. In the decades prior to this the building interestingly remains unchanged - however it had already by then obviously suffered some misfortune in its past. From the 1890s right up to the post-war years according to photographic evidence it is a two storey structure with improvised roof indicating demolition in its past of further storeys, possibly due to fire. This would also infer that the building's original intended use was that which occasioned the emblem over the gateway and that this use was unlikely to have extended beyond whatever had happened to reduce it, whenever that happened.

There was one avenue of inquiry that seemed interesting. In the 1790s John Wesley built an orphange in Northumberland Street that existed up until the mid 19th century. While the street numbers have been drastically changed since then it is safe to say that this was not the site (wrong side and end of the road). However a meeting of the corporation in 1849 discussed the need to provide funds to assist in the building of a replacement facility also on Northumberland Street. Infuriatingly I cannot see that this ever went any further but it does at least infer a possibly intriguing meaning to the motto should it read something along the lines of "born in sorrow/misfortune, new salvation/health".

PS: The history of Queen's Square could be equally as important in tracing the origin of this crest. Up until 1913, and the erection of the hall that covered this whole square, the doorway under the crest could best be described as a portal to an alley accessing this square from Northumberland Street (as with the later hall the main entrance to the square was from Northumberland Place). Any business or organisation working from a Queen's Square address could therefore also have financed its mounting over the entrance.

Gules, chevron argent, between three martlets argent.

The coat of arms of the Walkington family from Cheshire. Looking up the Walkinton arms directly they are Argent and Sable, strange.

Anyway, that is the closest I've got so far. This is driving me round the bend.

Don't forget Trike that this relief has been "restored" probably several times since its original placement and after when those who cared about it had long abandoned it. The birds, the anchors and the sea are bas-relief so can be relied upon. The helmet has not survived too well judging from the picture (a touch of bird-shit erosion all round I would say), as hasn't the motto either which definitely looks like it's been "fixed" on the right hand side at least once. The zig-zag ordinary remains the best clue within the crest (if, as Priscilla pointed out, the whole thing isn't just someone's flight of fancy). It is extremely rare, being a cross between a dancetty and a vague-ordinaire, and if it is genuine cannot but relate to the sea, though in Newcastle this narrows the candidates down in much the same manner as attempting to single out the xenophobe at a BNP/UKIP convention.

I still reckon the best bet is to try and find who commissioned the building itself, or who developed that block framed by Northumberland Street, Northumberland Place and Lisle Street in its original form before the next big redevelopment during the building of the Queen's Hall. A list of tenants from a gazette around the mid 19th century would be a great start, but anything I found of that nature online hopped from the 1840s right up to the early 20th century.

It seems tha pigeons are associated with mariners. Carried on board - Noah-wise, in days of yore,  because a pigeon can sight land 35km away and head for it thus being useful to the navigator.

Here's another view of the location:



(not that it throws any more light on that final word though)

One version of the Hedley coat of arms (they all approximate each other) which has a marked similarity to the Northumberland Street carving - the link with the sea isn't there but everything else appears to be. I've found several mentions of Hedleys living in the lower numbered addresses along the street but one very likely candidate is William Hedley, the steam train innovator who also developed pumps and hoists for Newcastle collieries and had a large town house near his friend John Blackett (whose family developed Blackett Street just across the road from Nobles Amusements). His widow Elizabeth (address 14 Northumberland Street) was a respected benefactress to several local hospitals, which might be in some way linked to the motto if the crest was erected in their honour. William died in 1843 but I couldn't find a date for Elizabeth's passing, or indeed if any of their four sons continued in residence in the area.

This is a link to Baedeker's map of Newcastle in 1910; "Trinity Chaps" written over the building in question?

http://contueor.com/baedeker/great_britain/newcastle.htm

Rising water and very wavy water - steam? for the pumps?

Trike, the Trinity Chapel stood on New Bridge Street across from the Erick Street exit. It's not on the the Queen's Square block of which the building we're looking at stands on its western side. I can't find who worshipped there (New Bridge Street was home to a plethora of Christian denominations) but it sounds Catholic. However the Unitarians had a church very near there too and I wonder if it was another name for it.

Nordmann, it's not Trinity House either, this is a real conundrum.

No, it's a chapel that was there at the time, nothing to do with Trinity House. Unrelated to the original quandary too though.

I am still intrigued by the Hedley connection with Northumberland Street however. I believe in the 1920s there was an abortive attempt by the City Corporation to acquire premises on that side of Northumberland Street for widening purposes. It seems the present main artery of John Dobson Street that obliterated Carliol Street was originally planned a little to the west. If that's the case there should be public records relating to compulsory purchase orders and appeals from the time that may throw up historical information for that building, which in the 1920s was included in the Queen's Hall deeds. Previous deed ownership is always recorded in such transactions.

I don't know how much help this will be, taken from one of my favourite sites;
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43340

I'd read that last week. Brilliant information for Newcastle but no help with the lower reaches of Northumberland Street unfortunately.

I'm now trying to get as much info as I can find on John Shafto(e) Hedley who also had "an imposing and symmetrical residence" on Northumberland Street in the early 19th century south of Saville Place. He had been alderman and mayor in his day and after his death the house was given over to use by the incumbent commander of Newcastle-based troops (a later John Shafto, presumably his son, ended up being court-martialled for irregularities in army pay while in that very position). Now I'm wondering if such a downturn in Hedley fortunes might have led to a selling off of portions of the property for commercial development leaving its once commanding portal in cheshire-cat like fashion grinning out on the streetfront?

Nothing to do with the question in hand, just something I came across by accident while searching Newcastle's past.
Wonder why we never see this advert anymore?

The skyscrapers.com site had a great discussion about the popularity of the swastika motif up in Newcastle prior to you-know-what. In Dublin it was also a logo for one of the largest laundries in the city (no, not the Magdalene Laundries!) and even I can remember their vans.



But back to my Hedleys - do you know where to get army addresses for the early to mid 19th century? I imagine commanding officers' residences are recorded somewhere.

nordmann wrote:

But back to my Hedleys - do you know where to get army addresses for the early to mid 19th century? I imagine commanding officers' residences are recorded somewhere.

I don't unfortunately, Nordmann. Not offhand anyway. I'll take a look on the web.


Re skyscrapercity, just so easy to carried away reading on that site.

Not an Army record, but I did find this in the National Archives;


Reference:
HCA 26/10/124

Description:

Commander: William Hedley.

Ship: King of Prussia.

Burden: 310 tons.

Crew: 30.

Owners: John Hedley, Thomas Shaftoe and William Hedley, all of Newcastle.

Lieutenant: George Hedley.

Gunner: Henry Flack.

Boatswain: James Watson.

Carpenter: William Hutchinson.

Surgeon: John Durham.

Cook: William Johnson.

Armament: 10 carriage and 4 swivel guns.

Folio: 125.

Note that the Tartar and St James received similar commissions


Date:
1758 December 9

Held by:
The National Archives, Kew

Legal status:
Public Record

This is what I was wondering too - if any of the Hedleys in the armed forces earned the right to put the sea on their crest. I gave up on trying to link the engineer lad to steamships but the naval angle looks much more promising!

NB: There's a Shaftoe listed as one of the owners as well.

The Shafto coat of arms, it has the same red field as the Hedleys  and argent chevron.

Re officer's addresses .... for last half 19th/beginning of the 20th century, their postal addresses should be listed in the local trade directory such as Kelly's Directory - available to view on-line often with a search function (I've used the ones for Newcastle myself). Listings are by street and so you may be able to work out for the exact premises who lived there or what the business was.

I'll have a look myself in a bit though they may not go back early enough.


EDIT : Oh! scans of the originals always used to be available online, but it seems someone has realised their value and you now have to buy the CDs.

re the swastikas, they were quite common on all sorts of products:

Pigot's Directory for 1828-29, couldn't find anything for 119 Northumberland Street. unless I've missed it.

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1828-29_Pigot%27s_Directory:_Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The number in Northumberland Street for that building is presently either 22 or 24. However it appears that these were changed (probably more than once) since the street was first laid out, and without a year for the building's erection we're equally in the dark trying to search by number too. All I could see was that the lower numbers have always been at that end of the street, and as the building isn't far from the beginning, where Pilgrim Street ends, I'm assuming it has always been around the teens or low twenties too.

A complication with the address might be that it seems this block has been referred to in the past as Northumberland Place, not just the lane leading up by its side. I'm pretty sure though that before the building became an entrance to the Queen's Hall/Theatre/Cinema it was divorced from Queen's Square by a lane called Prince's Street. The latter might also be another line of enquiry.

Still enthusiastic about the Hedleys though. I reckon they're the key here.

The first search I did for Nobles Amusements came up with an address of 119 Northumberland Street, rechecking it comes up with an address of Queens Square, Northumberland Place, which is obviously the site of the old cinema.

Slight miscalculation on my part.

re King of Prussia ship - took German immigrants to Pennsylvania  - in other  references called a prison ship...... over the sea to a  new life?

acanthus leaves about the shield under discussion -  the thread title, aside - no real significance in heraldry but use to embellish and fill up the spaces. Some glorious examples of this on line. I  must grow some because it such a source of artistic inspiration.

Interesting snippet from Kelly's trade directory of 1886. As you read the list downwards you are progressing up Northumberland Street on the eastern side. Note that number 14, if Forbes perfumery occupies the premises which now are the NatWest bank, has to be our doorway. It is listed as "Dove's Court" (I wonder why).



Of course by 1886 whatever had been the original intention of the crest might well have been long forgotten. I don't see any other references either to "Dove's Court" as an address amid Google yields so it could well have been just a term used in the vernacular while a pawnbroker and plumber plied their trades there. But at least we're working our way backwards to a date of origin for the crest.

I found a carpenter called Johnson whose home address was "Doves Court" in 1847. However what is probably most interesting to me is that the aforementioned Elizabeth Hedley in 1827's "History, Directory, and Gazetteer, of the Counties of Durham and Northumberland" is the sole tenant listed at 14 Northumberland Street and there is no mention of Dove's Court at all.

In other gazettes the block's more normally referred to as "Northumberland Place". Its counterpart "Northumberland Court" was directly across the road.

Your comments re "Doves Court" rang a bell with me ... I'd looked at Ward's directory for 1890 (and yes one can still see them online) ... and whilst at number 119 Northumberland Street there was only a "Mrs M Turner, dressmaker", this address seemed to be the entrance to "Cail's Yard", (with the possessive apostrophe, and several residents' entries to follow) ... and a "cail" is of course a quail (the bird) in heraldic French. This line of thinking didn't immediately lead me anywhere, (there have been several Cail families in Newcastle but even so the arms of Cail families are not the least bit similar to what we're after - although they do sometimes have birds, ie quails, on them). But with the number changes I wonder: are Doves Court and Cail's Yard the same place? (I didn't specifically record whether a Doves Court existed in 1890 but I don't think it did otherwise I think I'd have picked up on it).


PS : While this is all very interesting and entertaining .... one could always send an email off to the Northumberland County Record Office, whose main public office is located at Newcastle Central Library, ie about 100m round the corner from the doorway in question. I've had several dealings with them in the past: face-to-face in Newcastle; via email; and also requiring a paid researcher to do a document search (the main document archive is at Morpeth and obviously is not entirely accessible by the general public) .... and I've always found them very helpful and ready to assist, as well as being a mine of local information.

Northumberland County Record Office


PPS : And drifting rather more off topic I was intrigued by the business of Miss Maria Sheel (in Nordmann's posted scan from Kelly's 1886 Directory), who at No. 18 Doves Court ran a "Mourning Warehouse" .... Now I assume this wasn't just a store for tired old perishible goods that had just passed their sell-by dates and were feeling a bit sad - but rather it was a bit like a bridal store, though obviously catering for a very different clientel and with black, rather than white, predominating.

But did people really need to buy or hire specific mourning dress? The Victorians were admittedly quite keen on grandiose death, and so I suppose if one didn't actually possess a good, sober-coloured suit or gown then perhaps such places would indeed fill a need (like one can still hire morning dress or a dinner jacket on demand). Or was her business more like a funeral director's - only more occupied by the stage-management side: flowers, urns, starved-orphans-as-mourners, yards of dark, crushed velvet crepe, and swathes of bombazine black!  .... in contrast to the prosaic practicalities of the undertaker: embalming, coffin-construction, and burial?
Needless to say I'm curious.

That bloody motto had been bugging me. Now that I've finally realised what it actually says I am afraid I am losing hope for the rest of the so obviously badly "restored" armoury above it. The actual line should be "Ortus a quercu, non a salice" (Born of the oak, not the willow) and means simply steadfast, true, unyielding and no-one's sycophant. Anyone who can so ignorantly restore the letters in a standard phrase is capable of converting azure to gules, a fesse chevron to a fesse dancetty, or for that matter falcons into doves.

I'm also losing faith in Mrs Hedley who, after finding her mentioned elsewhere, if she indeed lived at number 14 then this number on the street at that time seems to have been slightly further up after the corner into Saville Row - which incidentally increases the possibility that our house at one time was at least possibly indeed a grander premises, occupying with one number what would later be ten or so separate addresses when businesses moved in to it.

Can we assume  that the amorial is in its orginal setting and not from elsewhere? Or indeed that the entire portico is not likewise? That might explain why messing about with the legend - or whatever its called - needed reworking and by someone better with stone chipping  than latin.

It's a safe enough assumption given how Northumberland Street was developed from the time of the arrival of Fenwick's and its sudden transformation into a retail and trade centre of a more up-market variety.

From the photographic evidence however I have also revised my assumption that the building in question suffered a fire. Instead, it would appear that it actually did not exist in 1897, by 1908 had acquired a ground and first floor, and then stayed that way until at least 1917. This post-97 version therefore calls the whole relevance of the Hedley connection into question, despite the similarity of the crests. I'm concentrating instead now on who ran the premises which would later become the National Provincial Bank and is now NatWest.

Several banks of my acquaintance have the names and insignia of predecessor banks later swallowed up by the big boys - might accord well with the motto if it were a local bank's branch, perhaps?

The National Provincial was an avaricious bank in its day, starting as a small Dublin-based private bank which, once it got the relevant licence (and the chairmanship of Thomas Joplin, coincidentally a Newcastle lad), expanded rapidly throughout the non-London area, even poaching branches from larger banks on the way. However in the case of this building that line of inquiry yields no apparent dividend (pardon the pun). The NPB arrived in Newcastle setting up a spanking new purpose-built branch (now a grade I listed building) at 7 St Nicholas Churchyard, at the corner of Mosley and Dean Street. That was in 1870 and the sub-branch up on Northumberland Street seems only to have appeared after the diminutive form of the present building was built circa 1897/98. In one photograph dated circa 1900 our infamous doorway can be glimpsed next to the bank premises which does not seem to be operating as a bank at that point (the name on the wall is indistinct but is definitely not NPB) - and even if it was had a its own entrance. The doorway seems always to have led to premises above and behind the bank, just as it does today.

My search for tenants did yield one frightening factoid. In the adjoining premises, now called Jackson Buildings but which started life as Star Buildings, one of the many offices to let within was occupied by "The Sons Of Temperance".

Mind you, "The Society of Friendly Druids" had their own office further up the street across the road from Fenwick's.

Well,if nothing else, I've learned a lot more about Newcastle.

I think I'm getting to the bottom of this ...

It seems that the land on which this building stands was, in the early part of the 19th century, owned by a rather respectable family called Dove (Roger Dove & Sons ran a coppermsith and plumbing operation from there, Roger being an alderman at some point). Before the demolition of Pilgrim Gate in 1802 Roger's premises would have been the first substantial buildings encountered on the east side of Northumberland Street and are still listed as Number 2 in an 1827 gazette (number 1 being, even then, Northumberland Court across the street). By the time of Kelly's Directory in 1894 - and an 1897 photograph shows that neither the Star Buildings nor our doorway's building (sometimes referred to confusingly also as Northumberland Place) had been erected as yet - this part of the street had an address "Dove's Court" in which a pawnbroker and laundry operated at street level. By then it had acquired the number 14, which it seems to have retained for quite a while.

Between 1897 and 1900 however there was a sudden flurry of development in this area. The Star Buildings, housing the Star Hotel, are erected on the north side of Dove's Court. In the same period work begins on an adjoining building planned to equal its neighbour in dimension, but for some reason building is suspended after only two storeys are completed. At this point however the old Dove's Court is replaced by our doorway, still number 14 Northumberland Street - leading as it always had to the rest of what had once been Roger Dove's entire holding, but now with addresses on Queen's Square. Access to this square, given that the new block has obliterated Princess Street (nothing but an access alley at the rear in reality) is now more practical via Northumberland Place. As far as I can see the bit of the building now occupied by a bank was at least partially for a while the home of Forbes' perfumery. I can find no other tenant before this became National Provincial Bank's sub-branch. Whether the bank's arrival triggered the investment to complete the development or was simply coincidental I cannot find any information about. By 1917 at the earliest however it is clear that the building as it stands now - bank, doorway and all - is in situ.

But anyway - back to the Doves. Roger's family crest approximates to this modern rendition:


Sable instead of gules, but then the genius who later took chisel and paint to the rest of the armoury while "doing it up" seems to have had aesthetic rather than historic appreciation for his subject.

Could it be that a Dove still held leasehold on the premises and insisted on the decoration, and did so because they were in fact at least partly financing the development? Could it also be that the initial investment proved insufficient and the Dove family pulled out of the venture? Doves of one branch or another continued in plumbing and coppersmith work from a much more famous base behind Newcastle Central Station which they acquired in 1869 (and only sold recently) and are still in business today.

EDIT: Changed reference to earliest date for the rest of the building having been erected. The earliest image I can actually find showing all five storeys is from 1935.

Now part of the University of Newcastle;

Images showing the development of the buildings at this point:


This from 1897 is not helped by the placement of the carriage in the middle of the street but it clearly shows that buildings exist on both the Star Buildings and Northumberland Place sites which do not correspond to what was to come later.


This from 1908 shows the Star Buildings now up. Our doorway's building however has yet to rise above two storeys, but is clearly in use. I could not decipher the name over the present bank premises but it certainly looks like it is at least partly a retail outlet with glass-fronted entranceway just to the right of our door.


This from around the same time, maybe a little later (advertisements have been painted on the Star Buildings).


And finally this from 1949. The doorway advertises an entrance to the Queen's Cafe (in the floor over the bank) as well as being at the time an antrance to the Queen's Cinema behind this structure.

Bump this as Haesten was on the messageboard earlier and may be interested with what we found.