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 is a circular Saxon dial inside the south porch of the church. Green says "There can be little doubt that this dial belonged to [the church founded in AD 681] and at the rebuilding of the church in the twelfth century was preserved and transferred to its present position."
It is in the form of a circle surrounded by a raised ring with four 3-leaved ornaments. Within the dial are five tide lines marked with crosses. Tides were the unit of time before the modern ’hour’ and averaged 3 hours, there being 8 tides in 24 hours.
The church is particularly popular in the spring as it has a famous display of snowdrops.
References:
(1) Green A R, SPCK 1926, Sundials, p18.
(2) Green A R & Green PM,1952, Saxon Architecture & Sculpture in Hampshire, p58.
(3) http://www.bridgechurches.org.uk/church_corhampton.htm
Note the similar dial a mile south in Corhampton: SRN 3196. Warnford claims to have been the headquarters of St Wilfred, Bishop of York, when he visited the South in AD 681 and the sundial is thought to date from this time.
2017
Church of Our Lady, Off A32, south of the village, Warnford, SO32 3LA, Hampshire
