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.
Rectangular south-facing vertical dial over the porch.
The dial is slightly canted west to face due south. It shows 6am to 6pm with full length hour lines and shorter half and quarter hours. These all terminate on a rectangular chapter ring but no numerals are now visible in it.
The triangular sheet gnomon has an unusual serrated lower edge.
A recessed slab over the dial has the inscription "1621 / EFTB". Above it is the coat of arms of Robert Burton, the famous author of ’The Anatomy of Melancholy’, who had the living in 1621 and built the porch. The arms include three dogs’ heads. The family motto is, appropriately, ’Lux Vitae’.
Note that the church is usually locked.
Photos I Butson, June 2010.
2010
St Thomas the Martyr Church, St Thomas’ Street and Becket Street, Oxford, OX1 1JL, Oxfordshire
