Dial in Kent

8-pt compass rose labelled to NE etc, but omitting ‘S’, read from inside. Signed in the compass points ring, at the S, ‘I DAVIS WINDSOR’. Anticlockwise EOT - Months in full in caps; Day numbers 10, 20, 31 etc, with 5, 15, 25 marked by a line; individual days; marks indicating EOT in seconds; EOT minute values, with seconds indicated at peaks, eg Jan 30th, 14 min 49 sec; ‘WATCH FASTER’ & ‘WATCH SLOWER’. EOT zeroes at April 4, June 6, Aug 20, Dec 13. 30, 15 and 7.5 minutes marks, with half-hours marked by triple in-pointing arrow-heads. Chapter ring, read from outside, with fleur-de-lys half hours. Quarter-hours labelled 15, 30, 45, 60; 5-minute marks; minute marks. In the Chapter Ring gap, Coat of Arms with Lion and Angel supporters, crown over, and motto ‘QUO FATA VOCANT’ (‘Whither Destiny takes me’). In the centre ‘HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE’ around cross with forked ends; and a stippled globe with three bands. Below to the left ‘Latitude’ and to the right ‘º51 - 37m’. Circular section pillar with deep ornate capital, and stepped octagonal base (approx 550 a/f), height overall 1180. Thick mount stone with leaf and bud decoration around the vertical rim. The dial would appear never to have been fixed to the pedestal. The EOT indicates manufacture before 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was introduced in Britain. J Davis was a Windsor clockmaker, working in 1746. He is known to have sold a clinometer and a sundial, but no surviving sundials by him were previously known. This dial was acquired by the present owner’s grandfather in 1928, when he bought a complete garden at the Chelsea Flower Show - the dial came with the garden. It was installed then in Surrey, and moved to its present location around 1992. Ref: Biographical Index of British Sundial Makers, Jill Wilson, BSS Monograph No 2, 2007.