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.
Downes House is about one mile east of Crediton, on the north side of the A377. The dial stands on a fine pedestal with fluted stem and decorative capital, to the south-east of the front of the house. At the south of the dial plate, read from the north, is ’James Buller Esq / DOWNS / Lat 50,30, 15 / 1789’, and to the north of the gnomon, in the compass ring, is the maker’s name, hard to decipher but possibly ’POLLARD FECIT’. In the centre, under the arch of the unusually shaped gnomon, is the coat of arms of the Buller family with the motto ’Aquila non capit muscas’ (the eagle does not catch flies).
There is an 8-point compass ring inside the chapter ring, labelled to NE etc. The hours are IIII - XII - IIII - VIII, read from the outside, with a noon gap and divided to 30, 10 and 5 minutes, and to single minutes in the outermost ring, labelled in Arabic at 20, 40 and 60.
