Brechin

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BRECHIN

Burgh

Incorporated into : 1975 Angus District Council (1996 Angus Area Council)

Official blazon

Or, three piles conjoined in base Gules.

(Above the Shield is placed a Burghal coronet)

Origin/meaning

The arms were granted on October 1, 1929.

Brechin, the cathedral town of the old diocese of that name, is dated as a Burgh of the Bishops of Brechin between 1165 and 1171.

The arms appear as part of the device on an old Burgh seal of which a fifteenth-century impression is on record.

The Cathedral of Brechin, whose origins go back to the reign of King David I (1124-1154), is dedicated to the Holy Trinity and it seems tenable that the three piles conjoined do represent the Trinity.

The field has been coloured gold, as similar arms with a silver field were used by the feudal Lords of Brechin, the first of whom was King David's grandson, David, Earl of Huntingdon, and have since passed into the Wishart family.

Seal of the burgh as used in the 1890s

Community Council

Official blazon

Or, three piles conjoined in base Gules.

Above the Shield is placed a Coronet appropriate to a statutory Community Council, videlicet:- a circlet richly chased from are issuant four thistle leaves (one and two halves visible) four pine cones (two visible) Or.