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.
The dial which was originally put here in 1810 was photographed by Burge in 1992 and looked as though it was in good condition (see the second picture). Why it was replaced is not clear. The inscription beneath the present dial reads, ’Restored AD 2000 by students of Penwith College’, but it is not a restoration; it is an entirely new dial. The original had upright numerals VII - XII - IIII - VI, with hour lines to a small semicircle around the gnomon root, and an arched top with motto above Father Time with scythe, hourglass and wings.
The replacement reproduces all this in the centre of a larger slate slab, and has on each side ’Watch and pray’, ’Time hastes away’. And above are two angels blowing horns. The motto, "Tempus Edax Rerum" (Time consumes all things) is a quotation from Ovid, Metamorphoses XV. 234.
The dial is delineated for Greenwich Solar Time, allowing 22 minutes for the location 5.5 degrees west of the meridian.
