The International Association of Amateur Heralds

I was flicking through Fairbairn's today and came across a very interesting crest:
"A helmet close, crested with a plume of feathers ppr."

This is on Page 32 of volume 1 of the fourth edition, with the image being number 4 on plate 180.

You can see an image of the arms and information about the family here.

Further research reveals this is nowhere near as anomalous as I thought. Some of the other families seem to be perfectly British and are not in the peerage, so they would, I suppose, be able to put a helm on a helm.

Do you mean a helm on a coronet?

This is the crest :


It would certainly look rather unusual to have an achievement of arms which has the usual helmet "befitting the armiger's degree" above the shield, and then another, smaller, helmet on top of it as the crest.