The Woodforde Family
A History of the Woodforde Family from 1300


WOODFORDE HERALDRY
 

 

 

Woodford arms at Ashby Folville


Woodford heraldic arms in Ashby Folville Church, Leicestershire.

The variants of the arms are as follows:

Woodford of County Leics:
Sable, three leopards’ heads or. Jessant as many fleures-de-lis gules.

Woodford of Ashby Folville:
Sable, three leopards’ heads gules, jessant-de-lis argent.

Woodford of Carleby, Co.Lincs:
Sable, three leopards’ heads reversed, jessant-de-lis, argent.

Woodford of Ansford:
Sable, three leopards’ heads reversed gules. Jessant-de-lis, argent.

The Woodford Cartulary states that:

And in this same coat armour was this same John of Woodford with King edward at the getting of Caleys And at the taking of the king of France at the battle.

Of Poyters.

Nichols, very clumsily, reprints the above extract and adds “this John, having attended king Henry III at the taking of Calais and the battle of Poictiers ….”

 

Comments and contributions to this site are welcome.
Please email us here.

© Stephen Butt 2004 - rev 29/02/04

  

Coats of Arms

 The Woodford arms as described in the family's cartulary – of three leopard’s heads emerging dramatically from the centre of three fleur-de-lis - are those that have remained associated with various branches of the family until almost the present day.  They were certainly being used by the Revd Alexander John Woodforde of Locking, Somerset, on correspondence in the early years of the 20th Century.

Four variants of the arms are known, two being described as `Woodford Ancient’ families of Ashby Folville in Leicestershire and of Leicester respectively, a further one being associated with the Woodford family of Carleby in Lincolnshire and one relating to Woodforde of Ansford in Somerset.  These arms all bear the distinctive leopards’ heads and fleur-de-lis as described in the cartulary:

And of the armys that longe to the sayd manor.
That is to wytee he bereth sabull the felde and
Three fleaures de lice sylv (er) returnd into
Three lybberd heedys of goules.

John  Woodford of Brentingby bore no arms before his journey to Melton Mowbray prior to 1316 and his subsequent purchase of the manor of Brentingby. It is important to emphasise that the arms were purchased along with the manor and have associations with the arms of Neville of Stoke of Nottinghamshire  – the fleur-de-lis -  and the arms of Canteloupe – loupe, lepus, leopard.  Nichols notes a deed dated 6 Edward II (1312) on which the seal of John Neville at Brentingby is described as “in an escrutcheon, three fleurs-de-lis circumscribed”. He further records a deed dated 1215 relating to William de Canteloupe’s interests at Brentingby on which the seal is “three fleurs-de-lis circumscribed”.
 

Carington Arms


The Carington Arms at Ashby Folville (quartered with Woodford of Ashby Folville).