Giffard's Cross, near Chillington Hall
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Giffard's Cross, near Chillington Hall by John M as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Giffard's Cross, near Chillington Hall
Image: © John M Taken: 11 Nov 2006
'The Giffard family crest bears the French motto: “Prenez haleine, tirez forte”, meaning: “Take breath, pull hard.” It is said to have been granted to Sir John Giffard in the 16th century as a result of the following incident: A wild panther kept at Chillington Castle escaped and was pursued by the household. Sir John himself came upon it as it was stalking a woman carrying her child through the park. As he drew his crossbow to save the woman his son came up behind him exclaiming the French words quoted above. He shot and killed the panther as it sprang and the King, hearing of the gallant deed, granted Sir John the crest of a panther’s head with his son’s urgent injunction as the motto. A wooden cross in the park marks the spot where this is alleged to have happened.' acknowledgement to http://home.btconnect.com/brewoodparish/brewoodparish/history.htm
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.664181
Longitude
-2.178867