The dial is in the courtyard of the Stirling Highland Hotel on Academy Road, formerly the High School. It holds a great deal of information, without appearing too fussy.
The inner square with large Arabic numerals shows Local Apparent Time, while the outer chapter ring with Roman numerals is for Greenwich Apparent Time (ie corrected for longitude). A scale across the bottom gives the EoT correction for every two days of the year. Seven seasonal declination lines are given, read by a small v-notch nodus on either side of the gnomon bar. The times of sunrise and sunset are given at their ends, and the main curves are labelled ‘Shortest Day’, ‘Equator’ and ‘Longest Day’. The motto across the top reads: “I only count the Sunny Hours”. The dial, which declines 30 degrees West, was designed by William Peck, the City Astronomer of Edinburgh, and was installed in 1891. By this date, Peck had already installed a 12½ inch reflector telescope in the Tower Observatory in the same extension. Both the telescope and the dial were funded by Lawrence Pullar of Bridge of Allan. Thanks to BSS member Dr K Mackay for the historical detail.