Restoration of St Mary's Church in Ross moved up a level last Monday morning, when a steeplejack climbed the church spire to bring down its cockerel weathervane for regilding.

Repair of the building's stonework is being carried out by construction company ROK, but taking the cockerel from its perch 205 feet above the ground was a job for practised high climbers – in this case, Birmingham-based father-and-son team Bill and Ben Neath. In perfect sunny conditions, fixing ladders to the spire with the aid of anchor points drilled for a previous ascent, Bill took an hour to climb up to the weathervane – but just a few minutes to detach it and bring it down.

The equipping of churches with cockerel weathervanes was decreed by Pope Nicholas in the ninth century, as a reminder to Christians to guard against sin. A cockerel crowed when St Peter betrayed Christ, but the bird also had pagan symbolic value in the Middle Ages as a greeter of the sun and dispeller of evil spirits.