Horse shoe

Horse-shoe

Horse-shoe, (fr. fer-de-cheval): the horse-shoe is found as a charge amongst the earliest arms we have. There are usually six or eight nail-holes, which should be of the tincture of the field; but when of another tincture probably it is intended for that of the nails(fr. cloué).

Argent, a horse-shoe azure--The burgh royal of DORNOCH, Scotland.

Argent, six horse-shoes sable, 3, 2, 1[also, Gules, seven mascles conjoined or; on a label azure, nine horse-shoes argent]--FERRERS[Planché writes, "Three or six horse-shoes are said to have formed the early coat of the FERRERS, Earls of Derby, who afterwards bore 'Vairy or and gules, and the horse shoes as a border.'"]

Gilbert de UMFREVILE, d'or ung quintefoile de goules, ung bordure d'azur ferrs de goulz--Roll, temp. HEN. III.

William de MONTGOMERY, d'ermyne a la bordure de goules et les fers en la bordure--Ibid.

Sire Johan de BAKEPUCE, de goules a ij barres de argent en le chef iij fers de cheval de or--Roll, temp. ED. II.

Argent, three horse-shoes sable pierced of the field--FARRIERS' Company[Inc. 1670].

Or, on a bend engrailed sable, three horse-shoes argent--REBERT FERRAR, Bp. of S.David's, 1548-54.

Argent, five horse-shoes in saltire gules, nail-holes or--FERRERS.

Vert, on a pale gules between two horse-shoes, each horse-shoe between three nails, two in chief and one in base, all meeting with their points to the shoe, argent; a sword in a scabbard azure, hilt, pommel, and studding of the scabbard or; on the point of the sword a cap of maintenance gules turned up ermine; on a chief per pale of the fifth and purple, a boar's head couped of the third between two demi-roses, the dexter of the second barbed of the first, the sinister argent barbed vert each issuing rays from its centre pointing to the boar's head gold--City of GLOUCESTER. [Arms obtained by Sir Richard Bell, temp. HEN. VIII., replacing the more simple and original arms, "Or, three chevrons gules between ten torteauxes three, three, three, and one."]

Argent, six horse-shoes sable, three, two and one studded with gilt nails--Augustinian Priory of LITTLE DARLEY, Derbyshire.

[Horse-shoes are borne also by families of ENDESORE; HODSON; PITT; SMITH, Eastbourne; SOUTH, Wilts; COOK; VYTAN-GIMPUS; BOHEM; BOOTH; besides the various families of FERRERS, FERRIER, FERRARS, and FARRAR. Borne also by the town of OAKHAM, and the Cistercian Abbey of FOUNTAINS, Yorkshire.]