Stanwick Lakes Heritage Sundial

Stanwick Lakes is a nature reserve, heritage site and visitor centre in Northamptonshire (https://stanwicklakes.org.uk/). The site has a working replica of a Roman pottery kiln, some wooden canoes created with bronze-age tools and techniques, and some iron age roundhouse reconstructions.

One aspect of their work is to encourage traditional crafts, such as wood carving, blacksmithing, weaving, pottery and leatherworking by offering workshops and demonstrations.

The sundial was designed to be in keeping with that ethos, and was created from an oak disk about 50cm in diameter, with carved hour lines and numbers.

The lines were calculated for a latitude 10 degrees less than the actual location, and then the whole dial inclined by 10 degrees, in the hope that water would run off more easily and extend the life of the wood.

The wide aluminium style was laser etched with the Equation of Time adjustments adjusted for longitude and installed on a wooden gnomon.