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The Motto of the City
‘Praemium invictae fidelitatis’ can be seen on civic furniture throughout the City. What does it mean? The reward of unconquered loyalty is the translation. Why? Because during the Civil War the City espoused the Royalist cause.
The detailed description of the arms is in heraldic terms. This includes reference to a peer’s helm, a gold-covered device only shared by the City of Westminster. The City’s right to use this was only achieved after what the College of Heralds refers to as ‘a long rally of correspondence,’ successfully concluded on the City’s part by the then Town Clerk, Harry Culliss, who sent them a wax effigy of the arms, which is included at the base of a pewter tankard which forms part of the City silver. The official emblazonment of the arms is dated 10th July, 1979, and is signed by Garter, of the College of Arms, together with two of his colleagues entitled Clarenceux and Nony & Ulster respectively.
The former Herefordshire County Council’s latin translation was ‘pulchra terra dei donum’, which appropriately means the beautiful land is the gift of God. On its original merger with Worcestershire the provenance of the new Coat of Arms shows the heraldic equivalent of the rivers Wye and Severn.
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