Bolingbroke heraldic shield, Lacock Abbey

The heraldic shield belonging to Frederick 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke (1732-1787) is one of 45 such shields painted on the barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Great Hall at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. All represented noble friends and neighbors of Laycock's owner, John Ivory Talbot, who demolished and rebuilt the old Tudor hall in the Gothic style between 1754-56.

Ivory Talbot planned to mark its completion with a party 'where all my friends who are in the country and whose arms are emblazoned on the ceiling will do me the honour of their company and a grand sacrifice to Bacchus (the Roman god of wine and revelry) will be the consequence'. It sounds like just the sort of party that the disreputable bachelor Frederick St.John would have enjoyed.

Lacock lies approximately 20 miles from Lydiard Park making Frederick a close neighbor.