County flag
Essex
- Flag type
- County flag
- UK Design Code
- UNKG7408
- Flag date
- C17th
- Designer
- Traditional
- Adoption route
- Traditional
- Aspect ratio
- 3:5
- Pantone colours
- WhiteRed 186Yellow 116
- Certification
- Flag Institute Chief Vexillologist, Graham Bartram
About the flag
The Essex Flag is a community flag proclaiming the unique identity of this historic English county.
The flag of Essex is ancient in origin and features three notched Saxon seaxes on a red field.
In 1889 Essex County Council adopted this emblem as its symbol.
However, the earliest references to its use to represent the county date from the 17th century.
In his A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1605), Richard Verstegen (1550—1640) describes the Anglo-Saxons bearing a standard of ‘Three seaxes argent, in a field gules’.
Cartographer John Speed (1552—1629) also included the flag in his atlas The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (1611/12).
