St George’s Day Flags – 23 April Flags, Bunting & Hand Flags

St George’s Day, 23 April

St George’s Day falls on 23 April, the traditional date of the saint’s death in 303 AD. George was a soldier in the Roman army, probably from Cappadocia, executed for refusing to give up his faith; the dragon arrived in the story centuries later. English soldiers wore his red cross on white from the Crusades onward, Edward III made him patron of the Order of the Garter in 1348 and he was formally the patron saint of England by the end of the fourteenth century. The day was a major feast until the Reformation and has crept back in the last thirty years with parades, church services, pub events and school assemblies, helped by the fact that it is also Shakespeare’s birthday and, by tradition, the day of his death. The cross of St George is England’s flag, and the St George flag on this page is the standard English flag in every size and grade; the wider range, including the three lions, the white dragon and the Wessex wyvern, is on the England flags page.

Parades, pubs, Scouts and schools

The St George’s Day parades in Manchester, Nottingham, Sandwell and Morley, the church services at Westminster Abbey and parish churches across the country, and the Scouts’ St George’s Day parades, held because George is the patron saint of Scouting, are the fixtures that empty our shelves of hand flags every April. Pubs and breweries dress their frontages with bunting and a 5ft x 3ft for the weekend nearest the 23rd, parish councils and town halls run a flag up the pole, Stratford-upon-Avon holds its Shakespeare birthday procession on the same weekend, morris sides and folk clubs hold their first dances of the season, and primary schools have red-and-white dress-up days with a table flag on every desk. Feast nights of roast beef and ale, St George’s Day dinners for the Royal Society of St George and village fetes in late April all want the cross on the wall. The Union Jack and the other home nations are under British flags.

The St George Charger and the novelty designs

The St George Charger flag puts the mounted saint on his charger at the centre of the cross with a shield of three lions and a red rose, a heraldic design for a pub, a re-enactment camp or a medieval banquet, and it has its own Charger bunting, Charger hand flags and Charger table flag; the Charger New flag is the updated drawing. For the party there is the St George grunge flag, the Keep Calm and Follow England flag, the St George bandana and the St George wig, and for the car the St George car flag and the England two lions car flag.

Sizes, grades and fittings

The St George flag runs from 20x12in for a car or hand pole through 3ft x 2ft and 5ft x 3ft to 8ft x 5ft and a 2-yard (6ft x 3ft) size for a traditional church or town-hall pole. Flagtex is the woven-polyester print with brass eyelets for the April weekend, Flagtex Nylon is the lighter cloth that flies in a gentle breeze, and DuraFlag is the knitted-polyester grade with double-stitched hems and a reinforced header for a flag left up on a pub or parish pole all year, with clips or a rope and toggle to suit the halyard.

St George’s Day bunting

St George bunting repeats the cross on every pennant in rectangle or triangle cut, in 3m, 5m, 9m, 12m and 20m lengths, plus a giant 18.25m length with oversized pennants for a high street or a marquee. A 3m length does a pub doorway or a classroom, 9m a bar or a school hall, 20m a street or a church fete, and the St George Charger bunting in 3m and 9m mixes in for variety.

Hand flags, table flags and windsock

St George hand flags on wooden sticks in 9x6in and 18x12in are what the Scouts, the schools and the parade crowds wave, sold singly so a pack can order one per child. The St George table flag with base is the 6x4in desk flag for a St George’s Day dinner, a quiz or a reception, and the St George windsock keeps moving on a campsite or garden pole when the air is still.

St George’s Day FAQs

Popular in this collection

• St George Flag (20x12in to 8x5ft, 3 grades)from £6.99
• St George Bunting (3m to 20m)from £9.98
• St George Hand Flagsfrom £5.99
• St George Charger Flagfrom £6.99
• St George Car Flag£7.99
• St George Table Flag with Basefrom £1.98
• St George Windsock£9.99
• St George Bandana£6.99