BRIDOL is the British Sundial Society's Register of Fixed and Mass Dials, which gives detail and photographs of about 8000 fixed sundials and 3000 mass dials in the UK.
Some of these are in private gardens, but the majority are publicly available.
This wonderfully ornate slate dial on the porch is worth careful examination. The engraver, in spite of all his skill, has not managed to get the dial exactly in the middle of the slate slab and has had to double the inner border on the left to allow for this. We can forgive him this lapse since the rest of the dial is of such interest. At the top between acanthus leaves is a rather rustic Father Time and below this the motto, "Sensim Sine Sensu". Mrs Gatty translates this as "Softly and no one knows" and it is an abbreviation of the passage from Cicero (3.Att.15) "Sensim et sine sensu aetas senescit" (Gradually and unnoticed the years grow old). The date 1706 comes next and round the gnomon root is a sun face. The hours V to VII are divided into halves and quarters, the half-hour markers each having a fleur-de-lys. Beneath the dial is the inscription, "Dial’sthe name that all men call me by, I measure time & time sweeps all away." The outer border is of acanthus leaves and rosettes appear above the columns of numerals. The dial measures 870mmh x 680mmw.
