Newsletter No 54 - December 2009 |
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FROM THE CHAIRMAN Karlheinz Schaldach has issued an invitation to all members of the BSS to attend the 2010 German sundial meeting in Grunberg (Hesse) next year. This will take place from Thursday 13th May to Sunday 16th May 2010. Grunberg lies at about 53 km to the north of Frankfurt and I believe that it is an historic town, in what would appear to be nice countryside, although I haven't been there myself.Members should book no later than 31st January 2010. The e-mail address of Karlheinz Schaldach is su.2010.de.vu@googlemail.com I feel sure that, if there is some interest amongst BSS members, he would be pleased to send further information Chris Daniel FROM THE SECRETARY Anniversaries The British Sundial Society has been in existence for 21 years, rather longer than some of the founders expected it to survive, especially the first Bulletin editor who was initially doubtful about the supply of dialling articles for publication. Members may be wondering if this anniversary is going to be marked in some way. There may be some small opportunities at the next conference in Exeter but, two years ago, Council decided to select our 25th year as the main occasion. Conferences and any additional features need to be booked two years in advance, so we must start thinking about what we might do quite soon. Perhaps members could make suggestions about how we could celebrate and mark our 25 years both in terms of events and/or commemorative ventures. Any ideas will be most welcome. Generic Email Addresses. Unfortunately, our attempt to provide all council members and specialists with generic email addresses has not been successful. What should have been a very low risk process was actually unreliable. Some emails were not forwarded from the sundialsoc domain to our individual personal mailboxes and there is also evidence that some emails got lost. It took some time to discover this problem and it resulted in some of our correspondents feeling justifiably unhappy. I have now replied and apologised to all those I know about but there may be others, to whom I apologise here. So, may I ask members to avoid using addresses with the domain ’sundialsoc’ in future. The email addresses given on the back cover of this Bulletin and the web site are correct. Grants for Restoration. There is increasing interest and a number of applications are being prepared, although none have been submitted yet. Members may like to know that these grants are funded out of the Gift Aid money that is recovered from the Inland Revenue on those membership subscriptions where Gift Aid has been agreed. I know that some members may feel uncomfortable about recovering tax this way but this money is not just kept by the Society. It will be actually given away specifically to fund worthy restoration and educational projects. Perhaps this might encourage more members to sign a Gift Aid agreement so that more restorations can be supported. Graham Aldred FROM THE BULLETIN EDITOR Proof reading. My appeal in the last Newsletter for volunteer proofreaders was very successful – thank you to everyone who responded. I now have a team of at least nine people who will proofread Bulletins – and I hope monographs too – in rotation. Monographs. Several new monographs are now in preparation. The first to be published will be on The Double Horizontal Dial. It might just be available by Christmas – contact me if you are impatient! The expected price is £19.50 + p&p for 260 pages, mostly in colour. After that, we have monographs on the Museums Survey, Saxon Dials and The Sundial Page (Clocks magazine articles) all in the pipeline for next year. Electronic Bulletin Archive. The project to have all our back issues of Bulletins available electronically has been given fresh impetus by Kevin Karney, who has agreed to look after the project. After an appeal at the Newbury meeting, Elaine Hyde (the daughter of our member Michael Maltin) kindly offered the use of a professional autofeed scanner to produce the basic files for further processing. A number of other members also offered help with scanning, for which Kevin and I are both grateful, though the automatic system will probably make this unnecessary. Watch this space! Provincial Dialmakers. A member of the public doing family genealogical research has recently made contact with the Society. Her many-greats grandfather was a sculptor/stonemason and signed a church dial in Worcestershire. There must be other opportunities for members to research local sundials and find out who made them. We know quite a lot about the professional London makers but have much less information about provincial ones. New Writers Required. I am very grateful to all the regular contributors to the Bulletin – it takes quite a lot of material to fill each issue and a steady stream of articles means that I’m not forced to inflict too much of my own writing on the readers. But I do need more contributions, especially from new writers. Please think about it over the sunless months. John Davis MASS DIAL MEANDERINGS In the last Newsletter, I promised to visit the Rollrights in Oxfordshire following Ian Butson and John Lester. Promise duly carried out and a new dial found. Which only goes to show: it required three visits involving four members to spot all the dials on these two churches. Astley in Warwickshire also has a dial difficult to spot but John Lester noticed a Saxon dial high up, almost obliterated, apparently deliberately, which triggered a memory of another dial with parts chiselled away. There is some suggestion that occasionally our little dials were regarded with suspicion as mysterious signs of evil. We are awaiting Mike Cowham’s work on Saxon dials, which I hope will provoke further interest. Our Saxon dials appear to be unique, as other countries did not have the benefit of a Conquest and dividing line in their sundial heritage. Excitement in early September when no less than four scratch dials turned up – all on abbeys. Ruined abbeys (including priories and friaries) have so far provided very few dials, prompting questions on ‘how did they tell the time?’, with a possible explanation of more manpower to maintain candles or sand-glasses. The first was at Inchcolm Abbey on an Island in the Firth of Forth, followed quickly by three in Ireland, at Mellifont, Askeaton and Muckross. The latter two are Franciscan friaries and feature horizontal dials on the ‘windowsills’ of the cloister colonnading and being protected from the rain are still in relatively good condition. Mike Harley is pursuing the Irish dials for us – what a variety the Irish have produced! Martin Snow, in Sussex is producing an excellent series of colour prints of Sussex’s mass dials. His digital images now form a complete distinct archive and, of course, many are better than we had before. Separate archives also exist for Yorkshire (David Watts), the Vale of White Horse (Frank Poller) and some other smaller areas. Their contents are used in the Mass Dial Register as we enter data. Recent counties entered include West Midlands, Dorset, Shropshire, Cheshire and currently, East Yorkshire. Many thanks to all our recorders, past and present for their reports. A.O.Wood REGISTER NOTES More dials worth chasing up: There is an analemmatic dial in the town square at St Neots, Cambridgeshire, which is not in the Register. All Saints Church in Old Glossop, Derbyshire, is said to have an 18C sundial. If you have £3¾m to spare you could pick up a horizontal on a nice pedestal, and have Kilmeston Manor, near Winchester, thrown in for free. (Not sure the dial is that special, actually, taking a magnifying glass to the Estate Agent’s photo of the house!) What looks like a good horizontal at Abbots Ripton Hall, Cambridgeshire, was shown in Country Life in 1983 – let’s hope it is still there. On the internet, you may like to look at the Country Life Picture Library index at http://www.countrylifeimages.co.uk If you are on, this has forty or more references to dials shown, often incidentally, in the pages of the magazine over the last hundred years or more. Inevitably some will have gone, but these particularly caught my attention, all photographed in the last 5 years:
John Foad COUNCIL MEETINGS Points from the meeting of 27th October 2009 : Mike Cowham had raised the question of the long-term storage of digital archives. The life of a CD is said to be only between 5 and 15 years, and anyway will there be hardware and software to read them in 15 years time? Can you still read those 5¼ inch floppies? This was agreed to be an important issue and will be given serious attention. Many members have expressed a wish to use PayPal for subscriptions, conference fees, and other purchases. Trials will be carried out. Next Meeting. Thursday 11th March 2010, at the Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. John Foad BSS SUNDIAL DESIGN COMPETITION 2010 As we have only received a small number of
entries so far, the BSS Council has decided to postpone the closing
date to 28th February 2010. There are extremely few amateur entries
and no juniors, so stop making excuses and use the post Christmas
period to get your entries finalised and submitted. J A Belk, BSS 21st ANNUAL CONFERENCE - Exeter 9-11th April 2010 The 21st Annual BSS Conference will be held at the University in Exeter in the beautiful county of Devon on 9-11th April. A booking form is enclosed with the December edition of the Bulletin. Further copies may also be downloaded from the Society web site or obtained directly from me. We shall be staying in Holland Hall which is on the University’s Streatham Campus. It is expected that, as usual, the programme of lectures will start after dinner on the Friday and will end at lunchtime on the Sunday. A coach tour is planned for the Saturday afternoon. Delegates should plan to arrive during the afternoon of Friday and to depart the campus after lunch on the Sunday. More information, including more pictures of Holland Hall can be found on our special Exeter conference web page to which there is a link on the Society’s ‘Conferences’ web page. Alternatively please go directly to :-http://www.ppowers.com/exeter.htm NB Exeter University require earlier than usual confirmation of bookings this year and so it is important that completed forms together with appropriate payment are sent to me so as to arrive before February 1st 2010. If it would help in financial planning, we can accept cheques that are post dated to any date before 31st March (though not later) provided both booking form and cheque are received by me on or before February 1st 2010. Call for Papers BSS Conference 2010, Exeter 9-11 April 2010 A few slots remain for oral presentations at the annual
Conference next year. If you would like to present a talk at
the meeting and haven’t already mentioned your interest to me,
please send an e-mail to me at :- Display Space at the Exeter Conference 9-11 April 2010 As usual, we shall be making space available at the forthcoming conference for attendees to display dialling related items. It would be helpful to have early notice of any interest members may have for allocation of some space, since the University provides tables for such events using an unusual modular system which takes time to assemble. Accordingly, anyone wishing to be allocated some space at the Exeter Conference is asked to let me know as soon as possible and to indicate roughly the sort of area that might be needed. I can be contacted either on conferences@sundialsoc.org.uk or at patrick_powers@dunelm.org.uk. Many thanks for your help in this.
MEMBERSHIP NOTES Many thanks to those of you who sent us your e-mail address. If you think we have an old one for you, maybe you could send us your new address. We will only contact members by e-mail on rare occasions or in the event of a postal strike; it is not intended to be a regular means of contact. There are a number of members who do not have a computer and I would like to reassure them that there are no plans to stop printing and mailing out the Bulletin, even with the expanded web site. I would like to welcome our new members to the Society: Lawrence Brewer from Worcestershire; Tony Thick from Morpeth; Malcolm Barnfield from South Africa and Brian Phelps from Gloucestershire. About half of our new members come via an internet search and the other half are introduced to the Society by a present member. If we could all introduce a new member, just think how our membership would be increased…. Jackie Jones NEWBURY MEETING. It was good to see such a good turnout for 'Newbury 2009' Grateful thanks to all those who helped set up, offered talks, brought interesting exhibits along, and for all those who came along (including a very new 'wife', many congratulations Andrew). And not forgetting all those who helped pack away tables etc afterwards. Thank you too, to Peter Ransom for running the show so very ably, to all the others who helped on the day. The date and Hall is already booked for 2010, 25th September 2010 same place - see you all there for a another 'sunny' day. David Pawley THE THAMES AND CITY OF LONDON SUNDIAL TRAIL Three qualified London guides have organised a regular programme of guided walks along the City of London and the Thames sundial trail. On the 5th of March, May, July and September, the walk along the Thames sundial trail will start at Tower Hill tube station. On the 5th of April, June, August, and October, the walk along the City of London sundial trail will start at the same place.The three experienced guides are Judy Stephenson, Anne-Marie Craven, and Tim Kidd. Your guide will highlight other interesting buildings and places we pass on the way. This is a marvellous way of introducing your friends and family to some of the lesser-known gems of London. The cost is £10 per person - there are concessions and group rates - please contact: timkidd@bluebowler.co.uk to make your booking.The routes of these sundial trails are illustrated at www.sundials.co.uk URGENT REMINDER – SUNDIAL TRAIL COMPETITION The closing date for sending in entries in the BSS/SotI competition for new sundial trails in 30th January 2010. There are two prizes (£250 and £100). Sundial trails are easy and fun to do (and interesting and useful to others). Just make a list of a few good local sundials which you could visit during the course of a morning (or even a full day) on foot, by bicycle, or in a car. Visit them all in an appropriate order, noting down directions for how to get from each one to the next, and take a picture of each one. Write up your sundial trail as a Word document or other suitable format, and submit it to info@sundials.co.uk. You will find it helpful to read the regulations and advice on:- www.sundials.co.uk/competition.htm. So, just set aside a day before 30th Jan, and give yourself a treat making a sundial trail!
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