Chilterns Weekend Walkers
CWW news
Forget trainspotting and planespotting. Chilterns Weekend Walkers have been gripped by a craze for spotting WEATHERVANES.
"It all started during the Covid lockdown in 2020," explains walk leader Anne Kimber. "Our chairman Steve Dowling asked us to share photos from our local walks on the group's Facebook page. Walking alone around Amersham, I became all the more aware of my surrroundings. Looking up, I noticed that weathervanes made a great subject for photos, especially under clear blue skies."
Anne's weathervane snaps soon garnered a cult following among fellow walkers who flooded the page with their own pictures.
By the time CWW had restarted group walks after the lockdown, Anne had linked 13 weathervanes into a seven-mile trail between Amersham and Holmer Green featuring an impressive selection of iron dragons, owls, swallows, horses and fish.
Her first walk booked up immediately, and so did a repeat version a few days later when walkers struck up a conversation with a friendly Little Missenden resident whose home was topped by a splendid weathervane depicting a man, a wine and glass, a pig and a sailing boat.
Sadly he had no idea of its origins, having inherited it from a previous owner, but Anne has been doing her homework. "We all know that a weathervane indicates the direction of the wind," she says. "In fact, it was one of the first weather instruments ever used. But not many know that vane is derived from the old English word 'fane', meaning flag."
Now, no CWW outing is complete without a weathervane photo opportunity and walkers are always on the alert for new examples of quirky rooftop ironmongery.
