Weathervane Wednesday ~ Weathervanes in Boston, England

I posted a series of weather vane photographs every Wednesday for the last several years.  This started with images of weathervanes from the Londonderry, New Hampshire area, but now I've found interesting weather vanes all across New England and across the globe.  This is the last weathervane post of the series!  I hope you've enjoyed these Weathervane Wednesday posts. 

Today's weather vanes were photographed in England.

Do you know the location of weathervane post #400?  Scroll down to find the answer.

These weathervanes were photographed on the tower above the "Boston Stump" or St. Botolph's church,  in Boston, Lincolnshire, England.  The name of the town "Boston" is thought to derive from "St. Botolph's town".  We were visiting Boston during our tour of England and Holland with the General Society of Mayflower Descendants Historic Sites Tour last year.

There appear to be eight weathervanes on the octagonal tower above the church.  Each is a gilded banner, and very shiny in the sunlight.  However, the tower is extremely tall at 272 feet height, and we could only see these weathervanes using the zoom lens on the camera.  You can see the sunlight glinting off the banners from a great distance.  This tower is so tall, sailors at sea use it as a landmark!

There is a "Puritan Path" of markers outside the
church, memorializing the Puritans who left
Lincolnshire for Boston, Massachusetts

"1630 John Cotton bids farewell to his parishoners on the the Arbella"

This church is very important in New England history.  The Puritan leader Rev. John Cotton was a vicar at St. Botolphs in the 17th century.  He encouraged a large number of his congregation, on board the ship Arbella and other ships in the Winthrop Fleet, to leave for New England in 1630.  By 1633 Rev. Cotton also left, and he founded and named Boston, Massachusetts.  There is a Cotton Chapel inside St. Botolph's church now, as well as a model of the Mayflower (the Pilgrim Fathers were imprisoned in Boston for trying to escape to Holland).   I had several ancestors believed to have been on board the Arbella, including Samuel and William Chesebrough, William Beamsley, Edward Converse, Mattias Irons, Edmund Lockwood, Thomas Mayhew, and Ezekiel Richardson.

Five men from Boston, England became Governors of Massachusetts - Richard Bellingham, Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Leverett and Francis Bernard.

I think that this church and it's weathervanes are a nice way to wrap up this series of 400 weathervane posts for "Weathervane Wednesday".  I can't think of a town or church in England that influenced migration and family history as much as the "Boston Stump".

I hope you enjoyed this series!

Click here to read about our day in Boston, Lincolnshire, England:
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/11/along-pilgrim-trail-boston-lincolnshire.html

Click here to see the entire collection of Weathervane Wednesday posts!

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Weathervane Wednesday ~ Weathervanes in Boston, England", Nutfield Genealogy, posted January 30, 2019, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/01/weathervane-wednesday-weathervanes-in_23.html: accessed [access date]).