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 is on the lawn adjacent to the house. It is on a Portland stone salver supported above his head by a kneeling painted lead Moor wearing a feathered skirt, by John van Nost. The dial is signed ’Dan, Delander, Londini Fecit’, is inscribed ’Latt 51 30’, and bears an Equation of Time. It includes a Royal monogram and the motto ’Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense’. The gnomon is shaped as for a double horizontal dial, with a knife edge to the vertical return, but the dial does not have the corresponding scales. The hour ring is half the diameter of the dial plate and shows hours 4am to 8pm with 30,15,10, 5 and 1 min marks.
An associated text indicates that the dial was commissioned by King William III for the Privy Garden at Hampton Court. The stepped square base bears an engraved brass plaque inscribed ’This Sundial was Presented by His Majesty George IVth to a Predecessor of the Seventh Earl of Egmont by Whom it was removed to Cowdray and sold there by auction on 14th Day of December 1897’ . It was sold to Harry Hyams, the owner of Ramsbury Manor, in 1992, and some of the above details are taken from the Christies notice at the time.
