15th of July 2019 saw the granting of a new county flag, purposefully coinciding with the county patron saint’s day of St Swithun. This new flag, designed by Jason Saber and Brady Ells, now bears the Saxon crown in recognition of the long history Hampshire and Winchester especially bears with the ancient Saxons. Winchester was Alfred the Great’s capital city, and St Swithun is thought to have tutored him when he was young. The Saxon crown is necessary because of the Royal Decree necessitating a Royal Warrant to have a royal crown on a flag.

The two-coloured rose has every bit as much background as the crown, as the Hampshire association with the rose as a heraldic symbol goes back to 1485, when Henry VII, first Tudor king of England, unified the two crests of of the rival of houses of York and Lancashire into one two-coloured rose.

The Royal Hampshire Regiment used in it’s crest a version of the rose with gold instead of white elements, stemming from the gold and red uniforms of the forebear regiments, the  37th (North Hampshire) Regiment and the 67th (South Hampshire) Regiment. These colours are also similar to the Wessex flag colours.