There are now over 4000 dials in Bridol, the on-line subset of the Society’s Fixed Dial Register of British dials. The Bridol display has recently been revised and offers a number of capabilities that may interest the armchair diallist.

Chief among these is closer integration between the list and map views. Any set of dials selected by the filters can be shown as a sortable list or on a map, using tabs to switch views. Clicking an individual dial in the list view reveals it on the map with detailed information and a thumbnail  that links to photos of the dial:

For security or privacy reasons some dials have their location witheld. Nevertheless, 3900 markers can be overwhelming so the display shows clusters by default. Zooming in will allow individual markers to be seen or, for the impatient,  the button at the top centre toggles clusters on and off:

The full screen button (top right) makes the map as large as possible and together these buttons enable interesting options such as showing the outline of counties in dials:

Other possibilities include analysing the spread of different types of dial by date or exploring the density of dials – which city has all these dials withinin a 5-mile radius?

Alternatively one can simply following one’s nose – the ideal way to explore dials from home!

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