May Balfour Memorial Garden, Marlow

This very large modern equatorial dial stands in the garden of Marlow Place, the finest Georgian house in Marlow. Access is from Institute Road, opposite Marlow Library. The dial was designed by Edwin Russell FRBS and is, arguably, related to the famous Greenwich ’Dolphin’ sundial (SRN 2157) for which he did the sculpting. It is carved from an immense block of granite. The shadow of the aperture between the metal pointers shows BST hours on the cylindrical dial. The only other marking on the dial is an equinoctial (equatorial) line showing whether it is summer or winter. There are five further small semi-cylindrical equatorial dials below the main dial. The largest, with a ball nodus on the gnomon, shows the date and Equation of Time, left side Jan to Jun, right side Jul to Dec. The four lower dials show time in New York, Moscow, Tokyo and Delhi. The dial was delineated by Joanna Migdal. It was originally commissioned by Rank Xerox for their then headquarters in Marlow. The property passed to a company called Akeler which gave the dial to Wycombe District Council for the people of Marlow in 2002.