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 within the Hooper quadrangle of the school buildings. It extends to 3m x 3m including 12 triangular radial arms with painted wavy and triangular forms, the sundial delineation being on a central 1m dia disc. Around the top is the motto ’Dies Creatorem Spectat’ (The Day shows forth the Creator), DCS also being a play on Dean Close School. A carved and painted school badge is mounted on top of the sundial disc, with its motto ‘God’s Word a Guiding Light’ from Psalm
119 verse 105. There are two Whooper swans to the east and west, each about 1m long. The gnomon is a tapering brass strip, anchored at the root only, approx. 50 cm long.
The hours are laid out for BST with longitude correction included, so even the hour for 1 pm is not vertically below the gnomon root. The equation of time curve is on an adjacent slate tablet in an unusual form.
The dial was delineated by David Brown, designed by David Kindersley of Cambridge, and made by John Williams of St David’s, Pembrokeshire.
It commemorates Sir Leonard ‘Joe’ Hooper who was a school Governor for many years and chairman 1974-84. He was also former Governor of GCHQ. Nearby plaques record the dedication of the quad to his name and the pun on his name that gave rise to the Whooper swans on the sundial.
