Interesting words – the origins and meaning of ‘weathercock’

This edited article about interesting words originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 263 published on 28 January 1967.

Weathervane or weathercock,

The fine church at Etchingham in Sussex, was built by Sir William Echyngham in the 14th century. Much of it has survived unchanged. The wooden canopied seats, known as sedilia seats, in which the clergy conducting the service would sit, still remain, strong and solid. There are beautifully carved misericords, too. These were seats put in out of sympathy for older clergy, who might find it impossible to stand throughout long services.

Misericords have seats that lift up – a bit like cinema seats – and on the underside, they are carved with fishes and keys, birds and knightly heads.

There are some excellent brasses in the church. The one of Sir William, who died in 1388, which has unfortunately lost its head, is the earliest brass in this county inscribed with a date. Stained glass used to fill every window at Etchingham, casting a glorious, mellow haze over the interior. Many of the surviving windows display heraldic shields in a striking range of colours. In fact, medieval craftsmen have never been surpassed in the production of stained glass.

Sitting proudly on the top of Etchingham’s tower is the most famous feature of this church: its ancient weathervane, some say the oldest in England. The vane is our oldest meteorological instrument, and this one was erected in 1387.

An earlier vane was recorded in the 11th century Bayeux tapestry. A scene from the tapestry shows a man climbing up to attach a vane to the roof of the newly finished Westminster Abbey, but that one disappeared long ago.

Vanes come in all shapes and sizes. The Tower of London specialises in vanes topped by the monarch’s crown.

Some vanes are made in the shape of ships. There is a magnificent 19th century model of a single deck warship on the Guildhall at Rochester. It weighs nearly 200 pounds. The ship is 4 feet 6 inches long with a beam of one foot, and has 26 guns mounted on deck. Churchill’s country home, Chartwell, flies a ship – a particularly beautiful one that looks as though it would not be out of place in the fleet of Christopher Columbus.

Most church vanes are shaped like cocks. In the past they sometimes got peppered with gunshot by the country youngsters. The cock was most commonly used as a vane because of his attribute of watchfulness. The cock was the early riser in the farmyard – herald of the dawn – seeming to burst his lungs with early morning vigour. Chaucer wrote of a cock called Chaunticleer in his Nun’s Priest’s tale – one of the Canterbury Tales:

“His voice was jollier than the organ blowing,
“In church on Sundays, he was great at crowing,
“Far more regular than any clock,
“Or abbey bell, the crowing of this cock.”

(From Neville Coghill’s translation)

Chaunticleer knew intuitively of the changing seasons, and he was typical of all cocks. So, the weathervane that blows in the wind is normally called a weathercock even when the device is not a cock.