Clock and weathervane on Riverside

Image: © Jonathan Kington Taken: 20 Mar 2011

This clock with the weathervane above are mounted on the roof of Image, although the weathervane still worked the clock seems to have long stopped. For centuries weathervanes, or weathercocks, have kept people in touch with the elements, signalling those shifts in the wind, which bring changes in the weather. Nowadays they are typically used as an architectural ornament at the highest point of a building. Although the cockerel is the traditional design, ships, arrows, pheasants, people and horses to name but a few are also common. Weathervanes are designed in such a way that the weight is evenly distributed on each side of the surface, but the surface area is unequally divided, so that the pointer can move freely on its axis. The side with the larger surface area is blown away from the wind direction, so that the smaller side, with the pointer, turns to face the wind direction. Most vanes have pointers below that are aligned with the compass points, north, east, south and west. Because of a papal edict in the 9th century there were a great number of weathercocks to be found on churches, the edict ordered that every Church in Christendom had to be mounted with a cockerel to symbolise Peter’s betrayal of Christ (Luke 22:34- "I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me"). Although the edict only required the cockerel to be a symbol it soon became a weathervane and by the 13th century both terms, weathercock and weathervane, were being used interchangeably. Because Christian churches are always laid out east to west early weathercocks did not need to have compass directions attached to them.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0