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English: Sculpted pair of heraldic badges, the "Courtenay falcon and faggot", of William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon (1475-1511) on the entrance porch of the Greenway Almshouse, Gold Street, Tiverton, Devon, built in 1517 by the Tiverton wool merchant John Greenway (d.1529). The Courtenay Earls of Devon were seated at Tiverton Castle and were lords of the manor of Tiverton and were great magnates in the South-west of England. The very rarely seen heraldic badge of the "Courtenay falcon and faggot" seems to have been adopted during the Wars of the Roses and depicts A falcon rising holding in its claws a bundle of sticks. The significance of the imagery is unknown.

It is possibly a reference to the "Courtenay Faggot" described by Richard Carew (d.1620) in his Survey of Cornwall (pages 132-3)[1], a naturally mis-shapen piece of wood split at the ends into four sticks, one of which again split into two, which was "carefully preserved by those noble men". Carew states: "and in semblable maner the last Earles inheritance accrued unto 4 Cornish gent(lemen): Mohun, Trelawny, Arundell of Talverne and Trethurffe". This is a reference to the heirs of Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon (c.1527-1556), the last of the Courtenay Earls of Devon seated at Tiverton Castle.

Alternatively it may be a corrupted version of the well-known classical Greek and Roman image often displayed on ancient coins of the "Eagle of Jupiter" holding in his claws a thunderbolt, the emblem of that deity. Mediaveal nobles frequently kept classical cameos and other valuables in a Cabinet de Medailles as curiosities, and thus the imagery would have been familiar.