Across the top of the dial is ‘W : B 1700’, for the Rev W Buck, vicar of the original church of St Mary, where this dial was first installed. Below the date we see ‘Floreat Ecclesia’ (May the Church Flourish), with a fitting floral motif on each side.
In 1873 the church was destroyed and rebuilt, with the Rev J R Lunn as vicar, and the dial was retained and restored. The Rev Lunn wrote of this: “When the old church was demolished, this dial accidentally fell down, and the iron style was broken off; but this was not much to be regretted, as it had been tampered with before. I have substituted a solid copper style, pierced with my own initials, and as it is considered proper to put something enigmatical on a sun-dial, I have also pierced this style with C. xiv., being the Sunday letter and the Golden Number of the year of rebuilding, from which date posterity may determine the year.”