Arms
Per pale sable and argent, a tower masoned between a mullet of eight
points and a decrescent, all counterchanged.
The shield is split down the middle, black on the left, white on the
right. On it sits a tower with its stonework drawn in, an eight-pointed
star to one side and a crescent to the other. Counterchanged is
the clever part: every charge takes the opposite colour to the half it
stands on, so the tower is white against the black and black against
the white, and the line down the centre runs straight through it.
Crest
Upon a crown or, jewelled gules and azure and capped sable, a lion
rampant or, holding in the dexter forepaw a spear palewise, the shaft
or, headed argent, tasselled gules.
Standing on a gold crown set with red and blue stones and lined in
black: a gold lion reared up on its hind legs, holding an upright
spear in its right forepaw — gold shaft, silver head, red tassel.
Palewise means the spear stands vertically.
Mantling
Or and sable.
Gold and black. The mantling is the cloth falling either side of the
crown, drawn slashed and curling — originally the cloak worn over a
helmet in the sun, shown cut about from use.
Supporters
Dexter, a horse rampant sable; sinister, a horse rampant argent,
gorged with a beaded collar sable pendent therefrom a roundel.
Two rearing horses, one black and one white. Dexter and
sinister are given from the shield’s point of view, not the
viewer’s — so the black horse stands on the left as you look at it,
and the white on the right. The white one wears a black beaded collar
with a disc hanging from it.
Compartment
A grassy mount proper.
The ground the supporters stand on. Proper means drawn in its
natural colour rather than a heraldic one — grass green, because grass
is green.
Motto
Canus maneo tempore firmior, on a scroll or.
On a gold scroll beneath the compartment. In English:
“I remain grey, firmer with time.” It is a play on the name.
