Arms: Sable, a bend Or between six fountains proper.
Plain English: A black shield bearing a gold diagonal band between six heraldic fountains.
The family
The Stourtons were an important medieval family whose principal estate was at Stourton on the Wiltshire–Somerset border. Sir John Stourton was created Baron Stourton in 1448, and the family remained prominent in Wiltshire throughout the period in which the St Thomas’s ceiling was created.
The family also had connections with other important local families through marriage. William Stourton, 2nd Baron Stourton, married Margaret Chidiock, co-heiress of Sir John Chidiock, bringing the Stourtons additional estates and influence in Wiltshire.
The arms
The six fountains make the Stourton arms particularly distinctive. A heraldic fountain is represented as a roundel of alternating wavy silver and blue bands, symbolising water.
The fountains are traditionally associated with the six springs from which the River Stour rises at Stourton. The six fountains were already regarded as characteristic of the Stourton arms in the sixteenth century.
Salisbury and Wiltshire
The Stourtons were among the leading landowning families of fifteenth-century Wiltshire. Their elevation to the peerage in 1448 places them firmly within the period represented by the heraldry of the St Thomas’s ceiling.
On the St Thomas’s ceiling
The Stourton arms appear at:
Sources
History of Parliament — creation of the Barony of Stourton, 1448.
Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry — Stourton arms and the tradition of the six fountains.
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