ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS

In the past there have been other designs for the County Flag of Sussex. This page explains the reasoning behind the designs and why we believe that they are not suitable flags for the County of Sussex and why our proposal, Saint Richard’s Flag is the only true option to represent the traditional county of Sussex.

BBC SCR COMPETITION WINNER 2008

This Flag was the winning entry of a BBC Southern Counties Radio Competition to design a flag for Sussex, held in June 2008. The design features the six gold martlets of Sussex. The field of the flag is halved. The Red represents the Administrative County of East Sussex and the Blue Represents the Administrative County of West Sussex, which comes from the coats of arms of the respective County Councils, (See COUNCIL ARMS page). The bottom of the flag is representative of the Sussex Coast.

However, this design was never registered by the Flag Institute as no organisation or association had requested this. The problem with this flag is that the County Flag of Sussex is meant to be representative of the traditional County of Sussex, rather than a joint flag for the Administrative Counties of East Sussex and West Sussex. The Flag Institute recognises this matter in its registry criteria, ‘In the case of county flags, the flag must normally apply to a historical county rather than a modern administrative area’. This flag portrays an amalgamation of County Council arms, which do not represent any county and only represent the councils. The County flag of Sussex does not need to feature the colour red on it to represent the east of the county; red only represents East Sussex County Council. There are many examples where Blue is used to represent the County of Sussex in the East of the County as well as the West, (See EMBLEM IN USE page).

Our proposal, Saint Richard’s Flag, is the only design which has true historical context to it. Six gold martlets on a blue field (background) is used today throughout the County to represent Sussex and has done since the emblem was first recorded in 1611, (See SUSSEX EMBLEM page).

SUSSEX PARTY FLAG

This is the Flag proposed by the Sussex Party, which was formed to campaign for a Sussex Parliament. The flag is split into four bands. The first band (Blue) represents the sky, the second band (Green) represents the South Downs, the third band (Yellow) is representative of the beaches and the fourth band (Blue) is the sea. The yellow circle in the top left-hand corner represents the Sun.

This flag doesn’t have any true Sussex symbolism or Historical Context. The flag could represent any County on the South Coast of England as they all have very similar landscapes to Sussex. The colour Green is used by many other County Flags, (See COUNTY FLAGS page).

Our proposal, Saint Richard’s Flag, is the only design which has true historical context to it. Six gold martlets on a blue field (background) is used today throughout the County to represent Sussex. The Six gold martlets are exclusive to Sussex and people would instantly realise that the flag is representing the County of Sussex.