The Midland Railway coat of arms is attractive and fascinating (see image 1) and its key components are described in a letter from the General Manager's Office dated 27 February 1911 (see image 2).
The relevant section reads:
"the Buck in the Park represents the arms of Derby, and the Castle and Ships on the right those of the city of Bristol, and at the left are the Arms of Birmingham. Those of Lincoln are shown under the deer with Leeds on the right and Leicester the left. The Wyvern at the top of the shield represents a quartering of the Arms of Leicester and was adopted as the crest of the Leicester and Swannington line which, as you may be aware, was the beginning of the Midland Railway. A dolphin is shown at the left of the shield, and a salamander at the right."
A coloured facsimilie of the full coat of arms of Leicester (with its version of a wyvern) is affixed to the letter.
Wyverns are mythical creatures that are usually depicted with a dragon-like head, a barbed tongue, the body of a serpent, bat-like wings, a pair of bird-like legs (with taloned or clawed feet), and a barbed tail. When used symbolically (e.g. in heraldry), the wyvern is typically associated with power, strength and courage. The Midland Railway wyverns were usually depicted 'sans legs' (i.e. the legs & feet are not visible, as per the coat of arms). Image 3 is a photograph of a casting rescued from Bradford Forster Square station and, while the pose is more upright, this version of the wyvern is also legless. Image 4 shows one of the wyverns cast into the brackets supporting the platform canopy at Hellifield Station and this variant does include legs (with taloned feet). The wings of this variant are also significantly different as they have a feathery appearance (more like angel's wings than bat's wings).
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
These four images are shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0.
Footnotes & acknowledgements
[1]: Photograph of "Coat-of-arms, Midland Railway, final type, transfer, on wooden panel." Science Museum Group. Coat-of-arms, Midland Railway. 1986-9398. Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed July 30, 2022. This version of the image has been reduced in size to speed-up downloading. The original version can be downloaded from https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co235989/coat-of-arms-midland-railway-coat-of-arms. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
[2]: Photograph of "Midland Railway letter dated 27 February 1911 from the General Manager's Office to Mr R E L Rigbye describing the Company's Coat of Arms." The Midland Railway Study Centre, Derby: item number: 21308. This version of the image has been reduced in size to speed-up downloading and the contrast has been increased to improve the clarity of the text. (The latter has darkened the colours slightly.) The original version can be downloaded by searching for the item number in the MRSC catalogue at https://www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk/catalogue.php. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
[3]: Photograph of "Casting, iron, Midland Railway. Wyvern from spandrel from overbridge at Forster Square Station, Bradford." Science Museum Group. Coat-of-arms, Midland Railway. 1986-9398. Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed July 30, 2022. This version of the image has been cropped and reduced in size to speed-up downloading. The original version can be downloaded from https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co523314/midland-railway-wyvern-from-spandrel-casting. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
[4]: Photograph of a wyvern cast into the canopy at Hellifield station taken by Mark R. Harvey on 6th July 2022. © Mark R. Harvey (2022), shared in this form under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
This article was conceived, researched and written by Mark R. Harvey. © Mark R. Harvey (2022), except where otherwise indicated / credited.