Dial of the Month

Please send your own submissions of your favourite sundials to the Registrar. This is your chance to show your favourite (public) dial (perhaps one near where you live, or one you have found on your travels) to other dialling enthusiasts around the world.

Dial of the Month July 2015:
St Mary Arden Churchyard, Market Harborough, SRN 3255

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This dial is on the headstone of Samuel Turner, which he designed himself.  He died in 1784, aged 67.  An inscription describes the man: “His occupation a shepherd, his amusements were the beautiful scenes of nature, his retirements the study of surveying, dialing, engraving &c”  On either side of the direct east dial are carved a map of a farm, surveying instruments (compasses, ruler and protractor), two sheep, and an image of Samuel with palette in hand painting a picture of a farm house.  For a full description see Roger Bowling’s article in Bulletin 23(ii), June 2009.

 

Dial of the Month June 2015:
Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, SRN 1490

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Known as Queen Mary’s Dial, this has been called the finest example of its facet head class. It takes the form of a sandstone prism standing on its point, with 20 triangular facets elaborately carved with coats of arms and monograms of King Charles I and his Queen Henrietta Maria.  There are various bowl, heart and triangular sinkings with dials.  In some the gnomon is the nose of a carved face, in others it is an open fret worked metal plate.  The top of the pedestal is an inverted hemisphere above a square column decorated with acanthus leaves and mounted on three high spreading octagonal steps.

The steps are probably later than the dial, which is dated 1633 and was made for the Scottish Coronation of Charles I by John Mylne III, Master Mason to the King.  Royal Accounts show that it cost £408 15s 6d (Scots) plus further charges for painting and gilding, illustrating that at the time it was customary to paint these stone sculptures.

Dial of the Month May 2015:
St John’s, Church End, Parson Drove, Cambridgeshire, SRN 0637

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I would not normally present a dial without a better photograph, but this one is interesting and seems ripe for research and restoration. Thanks to Mariette Voke for the original report in 1990, and to Ian Butson for more recent detailed recording.

The stone dial plate, with hollow moulded edges, is mounted on the south wall of the nave of this ‘redundant church’. It has two concentric square chapter rings, with upright but aligned Roman numerals. The outer ring has VI – XII – IV – VI, divided to half and quarter hours, while the inner ring is offset by just over four hours, with II – IV – XII – I. The latter scale seems to indicate the time at another location, possibly Bermuda or the more southerly West Indies, but the connection with this church is unknown. Across the centre are seven declination curves, with zodiac symbols between the two chapter rings, and a horizon line labelled accordingly above. Vertical lines cross the declination curves, probably azimuth lines, but these are not labelled. The iron gnomon carries a bar or peg nodus. There would appear to be an inscription, possibly ‘NOBIS …’ across the declination lines above the equinoctial line. There has once been an inscription across the top of the whole dial plate, but it is now indecipherable. The furniture is not totally eroded, and gentle cleaning, or even a photograph in grazing sunlight, might be fruitful.

Dial of the Month April 2015:
Bakewell, Derbyshire, SRN 2193

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S2193

This is an excellent modern dial, made by John McCrindle of Bakewell in 1990, and dedicated to the memory of Roy Bubb, a prominent local councillor.  It stands in the town centre and, apart from its shadow-shy finish, is everything that a good sundial should be.  It is readable and accurate; it shows the Equation of Time and the Greenwich time offset of 7.5 minutes, to allow clock time to be determined, as well as the latitude and longitude of Bakewell and a compass rose.  On the side of the thick gnomon is engraved the direction of Polaris, the Pole Star.   The Latin mottoes “Hora Transit, Reditura Nunquam” and “Spectate Omnium Hora, Omnia Pulchra”,  may be translated as “The hour passes, never to return” and “Look ever at all things of beauty” (or please correct me – I am no Latin scholar!).  The dial stands on a fine plinth, and is signed by the maker, in minute letters along the foot of the gnomon.

 

Dial of the Month March 2015:
Crediton, Devon, SRN 0103

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s0103
On the south wall of the western tower of St Andrew’s church is a slate sundial in an architectural terracotta aedicule with flanking Ionic pilasters and a tented and scrolled pediment. Above the dial are carved a skull, scythe and hourglasses, and below there are the heads of cherubs.  A motto across the upper and lower boundaries of the chapter ring reads: ‘Watch and Pray Time Flies Away’.  The dial was designed, made and signed by the celebrated ecclesiastical sculptor Harry Hems of Exeter, and was the gift in 1889 of Mr Charles Turner of Sydenham, Somerset.
We have had no report since 1973, so I would encourage any member in the vicinity to visit and confirm the current state of the dial, and to let me have a report and photographs.  While there, look for the mediaeval fireplace in the north wall which is said to be almost unique, and also for some quaint epitaphs on the monuments.

Dial of the Month February 2015:
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, SRN 0289

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The Ebenezer Chapel at Hebden Bridge was built in 1777.    The Particular Baptists outgrew it by 1857 and it became a Sunday School till 1883.  It was sold after the first World War and had various other uses until 1973 when, after being the offices of the Hebden Bridge Times, it became the village Arts Centre, and remains as such today.

The design latitude and declination are both inscribed on this fine dial, together with a motto which reads ‘Quod Petis Umbra Est’ (What thou seekest is a shadow). The sturdy gnomon has a decoratively sculpted lower edge, and although it is quite thin, there is an appropriate substyle gap in the chapter ring. Unusually for a vertical dial, it is flanked on each side by EoT corrections for 38 dates in the year.