The Gresham Grasshopper.

Standing in the grounds of Gresham House {1830), Cambridge,  is this grasshopper sculpture. It is the crest above the Gresham family's coat of arms, also the crest of Gresham college and is on the weathervane above the Royal Exchange, city of London, which was founded by Thomas Gresham 1565. This sculpture was made by Matthew Lane Sanderson, a Cambridge man who specialises in metalwork with natural and organic themes.  According to an ancient  legend, the founder of the family Roger-de-Gresham was a foundling, abandoned as a new born baby in the long grass of Norfolk in the 13thCentury. He was found by a woman whose attention was drawn to the child by a grasshopper. Probably named Gresham as gres was a middle English form of grass, and ham being a hamlet.  I notice that the TV aerial in the background looks like a sculpted flying insect !