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.
Very fine bow-string equatorial with a mean time gnomon.
The equatorial ring carries the time scale with marks every quarter hour from 6am to 6pm and Arabic hour numbers.
The polar axis is a stainless steel gnomon, turned to a figure 8 shape so that the dial reads GMT. A mean-time dial of the type was first patented by John Oliver in 1892 but remains very rare. The design works well much of the year but falls down where the gnomon has to made thicker than desired for strength reasons.
Unless there are two gnomons, for the two halves of the year the gnomon shape must be a compromise. Nontheless, it should tell GMT considerably more accurately than an uncorrected sundial.
The dial rests on a stainless steel disk that gives instructions for reading the correct side of the shadow, depending on the date, and is inscribed "In memory of Rita Morice who enjoyed these gardens for many years" and "There is no present like the time".
The dial is in Portswood Residents’ Gardens (white gate posts next to 16 Abbotts Way).
See SRN 6293 for another example by the same maker, P B Morice, on Southampton University campus.
2007
next to 16 Abbotts Way, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1QT, Hampshire
