Close Helmet with St.John falcon, c1620

This type of helmet is known as a 'funerary helmet' honouring and marking the death of knights or members of the nobility; in this case a member of the St.John family. In the seventeenth century, it was common for amour to be carried in a funeral procession to the church and the St.Johns retained an earlier practice of leaving the helmet on permanent display. This is one of three late sixteenth- / early seventeenth-century helmets remaining at St. Mary's Lydiard Tregoze.

The helmet is called a 'close' helmet because it has a visor that pivots up and down and it fully encloses the head and neck. It is adorned with a painted wood carving of the St.John family emblem - a falcon. It is from a three-quarter lance armour and was probably made in England. The piercings in the lower visor and the gorget plates (steel collar to protect the neck back and front) are seventeenth-century modifications for use with a lancer armour