The Coat of Arms of Mill Hill School

Crest of Arms designed by Sir Robert Balchin DL, Chairman of the Court of Governors, 2005-2007

In March 2007, in Britain’s foremost Cathedral, we celebrated with music, pageantry and words the Bi-Centenary of Mill Hill School. We also marked the occasion with symbolism: the grant of a new Crest of Arms which was presented by Mr Robert Noel, Her Majesty’s Lancaster Herald.

Mill Hill School had used informally since Victorian times a variant of its current coat of arms and in 1935 applied to the Earl Marshal for a warrant to legitimise its use. It was granted a shield described in heraldic language as follows:

Argent on a Cross quadrate Gules an Open Book Argent; on a chief Azure, three Martlets Or.

Translated this means that the shield bears a red cross on a white ground and on a red square in the middle is an open book. At the top is a blue area with three gold birds. The red cross of St George symbolises the school’s English foundation and also its roots in the City of London, the shield of which bears a similar cross. The book, of course, represents learning; the birds, martlets, are curious because traditionally they have been drawn since medieval times without feet! This was, it was traditionally said, because they had to rely only on the ‘wings of virtue and merit’ with which to soar. More prosaically they were probably swifts, the feet of which are hidden by tufts of feathers.

The motto chosen was: Et Virtutem et Musas

It was customary in the ’30s for schools to be granted a shield alone (ie without the helmet and its crest typical of most Coats of Arms.) To commemorate the Bi-Centenary the Court of Mill Hill, through its Chairman, applied for the grant of a crest. After a Royal Licence had been signed by HM The Queen, a Patent was issued early this year to confer upon the school the privilege of bearing with its shield a crest and a badge.

The Patent described these thus:

Within a Coronet Or a Grassy Mount Vert sejant erect thereon a Lion Gules winged paly Or and Azure grasping with both forepaws a Millrind Or.

This translates: a red lion with wings of gold and blue sitting on a grassy hill and grasping with both paws a gold millrind (the metal centre piece of a millstone). The lion (again a symbol of England) is winged because he is carrying the values of Mill Hill School far and wide. The coronet represents the Royal Licence recently granted. The crest uses the main colours of the shield and may also be used as a Badge within a pair of golden branches to remind us of the unique wooded setting of Mill Hill; they are bright gold because they also represent the Enlightenment which motivated the foundation of Mill Hill School two hundred years ago.

Sir Robert Balchin DL
Chairman of the Court of Governors, 2005-2007