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.
A possible reason why this dial is tipped backwards so that its gnomon is almost horizontal is that someone wanted to fix a lamp on the porch and thought the dial would make a good hood for it. It was a wicked deed to treat it in this way. It is dated 1806 at the top and the motto, "Life is fleeting as the shadow" appears underneath. The Churchwardens, T Truscott and G Pinch appear next in fine Gothic letters while at the bottom of the dial plate are the initials W.P. followed by Roche which is the name of a nearby village where headstones carved by this stonemason can be seen. The dial shows VI to VI divided into halves and quarters which is fairly standard. However, the dial presents another mystery in the form of the place-names engraved radially in a semicircle below the gnomon root. We know that they are there to compare local noon in those places with the local time here but some have become illegible. Mrs Crowley has drawn what she thinks they are but she has duplicated all of them. Burge has a whole appendix on the subject. It is possible that they may read, in anticlockwise order: Naples, Cairo, Ispahan, London, Moscow, Astoria, Candia. But that would mean that some were inaccurately placed. Rome and Jerusalem often appear in such lists but they have been omitted here.
2006
St Stephen’s Parish Church, St Stephen in Brannel, Cornwall
