Solar Square, Shenley Lodge, Milton Keynes

The Javelin sundial, a large modern horizontal dial built for the MK Energy World 1986 Exhibition. Originally there were unnumbered hour marker discs set into the brick paving, as can be seen in our photograph. At dusk and on overcast days these lit up to show the time. Unfortunately, they have since been removed and concreted over due to running costs. So these concrete patches are now all that act to tell the time. A plaque at the gnomon foot tells you how to find the current time in GMT or BST: count discs from the noon disc (12 o’clock GMT or 1pm BST) to the javelin’s shadow. Arcs of lighter brick show the lengths of day at the solstices. The nearby clock tower carries a similar motif. Note that the architects required a 1.75 degree mis-alignment of the gnomon resulting in a small time error (making the dial around 7 minutes slow). The dial was designed by Chris Daniel and made by Brookbrae Ltd.