There were two of these gilded roosters above a church on the main square in Zierikzee, The Netherlands. We enjoyed walking around the town, and had a coffee in the square while admiring these two weathervanes. They appear to be identical, and over a church. One sits above a round cupola, and the other over a pointed octagonal tower.
There is a long history of rooster weathervanes (also known as weathercocks) above Christian churches that goes back at least a thousand years. Pope Gregory I declared that the rooster, the symbol for St. Peter, was the symbol for Christianity. Thus, church towers began to appear with weathercocks. The rooster comes from the story of St. Peter denying Jesus Christ three times "before the cock crowed" on the night of the Last Supper.
I have photographed many weathercocks above churches. Another popular symbol for weathervanes above churches is the fish, which is also an acronym for Jesus in ancient Greek - Ichthys. The Greek letters are Iota (Iesous) Jesus, Chi (Christos) Christ, Theta (Theou) God, Upsilon (Uios) Son, Sigma (Soter) Savior. The fish is also popular because the twelve apostles were called "fishers of men".
The Wikipedia article for Zierikzee, The Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zierikzee
Last week I featured a Weathervane Wednesday post on another Zierikzee weathervane of Neptune: https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-merman-for-weathervane-wednesday.html
Click here to see more than 550 more Weathervane Wednesday posts from around the world: https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/search/label/Weathervane%20Wednesday
--------------------------
To cite/link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Two Roosters in the Netherlands for Weathervane Wednesday", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 4, 2026, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/03/two-roosters-in-netherlands-for.html: accessed [access date]).
