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Roodkerk (The Netherlands)

Dantumadeel municipality, Fryslân province

Shipmate Flagchart : http://www.flagchart.net
adopted 1977; design: J.C. Terluin

Roodkerk village (Readtsjerk)
Roodkerk Coat of Arms

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Roodkerk village (Readtsjerk)

Roodkerk (Frisian: Readtsjerk) is a village in Dantumadeel, Fryslân.
Rood (=red) refers to the color of the church, on the boundary with Tytsjerksteradiel (where several village have names ending on *tsjerk) with c. 200 inhabitants. The tuffstone church is from the 12th century.
Nickname: "Potskrabbers" - potscrapers; people were so poor that they used an old knife to scrape the last eadible parts out of it.
Readtsjerk Coat of Arms: in blue a silver church with a saddleroof, church and spire with a red roof and a silver cross on the spire-roof.
Flag: in red a white hoist-triangle with the point reaching the fly, charged with with a briad-armed cross of 1/5 flagheight.
Coat of Arms and flag were made in 1977, together with those of the villages of the region in Tytsjerksteradiel, known as Trynwâlden: Gytsjerk, Oentsjerk, and Ryptsjerk. As Readtsjerk was in Dantumadeel the village symbols were not registered, like the ones of Tytsjerksteradiel. When the Fryske Rie foar Heraldyk heard that the village symbols were being used it was decided to register them. The red roof and the church form the canting elements in the Coat of Arms. The point in the flag symbolizes the churchroof, and the cross is evident.
Design: J.C. Terluin.
Source: Genealogysk Jierboekje 2002.
Encyclopedie van Friesland, 1958.
Jarig Bakker, 23 Aug 2003

Roodkerk Coat of Arms

image from Ralf Hartemink's site.