Vicar Lane Barclays Eagle

Unusual markings, logos and symbols around the city
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mhoulden
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Joined: Fri 27 Nov, 2009 8:00 pm
Location: Wortley
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Post by mhoulden »

Something that's been puzzling me is the eagle carved into the stonework above the door on the Vicar Lane branch of Barclays. In their logo it faces left:However over the door it faces right:I finally got in touch with Barclays to ask them about this and here's what they told me: Quote: "The eagle is our logo because we inherited it – when our founders, John Freame and Thomas Gould moved to , the building was already known by its sign of a black spread eagle so they kept it. At that point, we don’t think there was a specific design for it, but it does seem to have been shown facing right more often than not. However, it was not generally used on branches as our brand in the way that it is now.In 1937, Barclays applied to have the eagle as an official coat of arms. In heraldry, eagles are usually shown facing left, so it was at that point that the design of the eagle became more defined.The branch at Leeds, Vicar Lane was built in 1937. It was quite unusual to put the eagle on a branch at that date, so either the stone work was commissioned before the grant of arms was made official, or it just didn’t occur to anyone to specify which way the eagle should face." At least it wasn't put up upside down.

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Leodian
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Joined: Thu 10 Jun, 2010 8:03 am

Post by Leodian »

That's most interesting mhoulden and extremely well picked up. I will have seen the carved logo countless times and have probably even photographed it at some stage but I've never spotted the subtle difference between it and the company logo.
A rainbow is a ribbon that Nature puts on when she washes her hair.

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