Cumbria is a great place to be and shapes the people who live there. As such, I feel our flag should represent our surroundings.
Blue for the lakes, the sea and the sky.
White for the ice which shaped the land, and the clouds and the snow.
Green for the land and the vegetation.
In the centre is the Cumbrian Coat of Arms, commissioned for the county at its inception in 1974.
I have made a flag/banner to take to Cumbrian events:
The following text explaining the Cumbrian Heraldic Crest was taken from this article.
The arms for the modern county of Cumbria were granted in 1974. They contain references to the arms of the former authorities that were amalgamated to form Cumbria and a device in the centre of the shield, which is unique to the new county.
The Cumbria crest is a helmet, crest and mantling. The ram's head crest is taken from the arms of Barrow County Borough and also of Westmorland and is distinguished from them by parnassus flowers, taken from the former Cumberland Arms, put between the ram's head and the wall on which it stands. The helmet, surmounted by a blue, green and white torse and a wall, is the usual walled or mural helm traditionally given to denote a local authority from the time of the old walled towns. The mantling gives the primary livery colours for Cumbria, green lined with white.
The shield has a green border with parnassus flowers (Cumberland Arms) interspersed with white roses (Yorkshire) superimposed with red roses (Lancashire). The centre of the shield has segments of blue, white, yellow and green divided by wavy vertical lines and zigzag horizontal lines. This depicts the new county and, from left to right, the vertical lines of segments show: blue and white for the sea; blue and yellow (gold) for the lakes and agriculture; green and white for mountains and lakes; green and yellow (gold) for mountains and agriculture. The combination of colours, waves and zigzag peaks is an ingenious formal diagrammatic picture of the new county as a whole.
Supporter on the left side is the Dacre Bull at Naworth, a legendary beast from the Cumberland Arms. On the right is a red dragon, a reference to the red dragons of Appleby, the ancient county town of Westmorland, and also the red wyverns (two legged dragons) of Carlisle. The dragons symbolise the connection, going back to Celtic times, between Cumbria and Cambria (Wales).
The base represents Hadrian's Wall, across which are two red bars taken from the Westmorland Arms, which in turn derived them from the arms of the de Lancaster barons of Kendal. The Barony of Kendal was in the south of Westmorland.
The Latin motto 'Ad Montes Oculos Levavi' refers to Psalm 121: 'I shall lift up mine eyes unto the hills'. The Lake District fells are central to Cumbria and can be seen from all parts of the new county.
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