Mass Dial Meanderings - Extracts from the Society's Newsletter

CLICK HERE TO GO STRAIGHT TO AN ARTICLE

March 2007

December 2006

September 2006

June 2006

March 2006

December 2005

September 2005

June 2005

March 2005

December 2004

September 2004

June 2004

September 2003

March 2003

December 2001

September 2001

May 2001

February 2001

Mass Dial Meanderings – March 2007

Still very busy! Chris Williams has taken all the data held in our records and is now busy investigating survival rates and distributions for each county. He will be publishing Kent’s figures locally in summer and subsequently write his results for the Bulletin.

The Mass Dial Register entries for Scotland, Ireland and Wales are completed. The counties of Rutland, Devon, London, Lancashire, Cornwall, West and South Yorkshire are also completely entered and pilot copies are being distributed for checking.

Mass Dial Meanderings – December 2006

Very Busy! Chris Williams’ paper on Kent mass dials will be published shortly in the journal of the Kent Archaeological Society and asks any member who would like a copy to contact me for offprints.

And – a new species of dial! At Branscombe in Devon. A string of Roman numerals (VI to IX) on the chancel wall; across which the shadow of the SE buttress moves during the morning. John Lester has photographed and measured and has left the trigonometry to me.

Two lists requested by eager searchers so that they can do a proper survey of their areas; Nottingham for Peter Lane and Derbys./Leics. For Irene Brightmer. They have both produced ‘new’ mass dial discoveries and parts of all three counties appear to be relatively unexplored.

Ian Butson has ‘tidied off’ Bedfordshire – just in time, as it is being entered as the second county for the Mass Dial Register, Bob Adams and Lincolnshire ranking as number one!

To Ettington (Warks.) betimes, and Britain’s most haunted hotel, which looks after an old church – with guided tours. Sure enough, a mass dial – with an unusually small but deep hole. The hotel provided an excellent celebratory afternoon tea!

Happy searching, don’t forget the definite no-no s.

Mass Dial Meanderings – September 2006

Mass dials are buzzing. Chris Williams in Kent is surveying the distribution and survival rates of Kent mass dials and, in order to compare with other counties, has contacted Alan Cook, Ian Butson and Bob Adams for details of the dials of Yorkshire, Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire respectively.

At the moment Chris will be publishing the results in the Kent archaeological journal but is hoping to extend the survey using our archive data and publish his findings in the Bulletin.

Peter Lane has started to explore Nottinghamshire and has already turned up some new dials. He may even be able to establish a northern boundary as he approaches Yorkshire. The absence of dials in the West Riding is well known and Alan Cook’s explorations have established what seems to be a demarcation line along the Great North Road: dials to the east, none to the west.

Chris Williams also points out that ‘nil returns’ are valuable statistically, so if an ‘eligible’ church has no dials – make a note; something I haven’t done formally in the past but fortunately some of our recorders have.

The archive is now sorted into County files and hopefully can be kept up to date. The conversion of ‘report’ into ‘record’ is by no means complete but is ongoing. When several members/pioneers cover a church with multiple dials they inevitably use their own numbering system. This is unavoidable and the reports have to be correlated within the archive.

The Register is almost up and running – watch this space.

Mass Dial Meanderings – June 2006

Oxfordshire looms large at present. A request from Kate Crennell of the local bellringers has sent me scurrying into our archives of the Oxford Diocese mass dials. As the diocese consists of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, this is a lot of churches. Furthermore, Ted Hesketh and Frank Poller independently surveyed much of the region with considerable duplication. This was in the 1970’s, 80’s and early 90’s and Ian Butson subsequently tidied off Buckinghamshire with excursions into Oxfordshire/Berkshire. Consequently, we have very good coverage with two or three reportages at many churches. Others have also put in their eurosworth, myself included; the whole lot is now filed in alphabetical order in 14 ring files. In case you think filing in alphabetical order is easy, Ted Hesketh has ‘Hanney, West and Frank Poller and I have West Hanney etc. Lower Wychendon also appears as Nether Wychendon or even Wychendon, Nether and also Oxfordshire occupied (verb active, not passive, here) a large part of Berkshire in 1974.

The decision to retain intact the Hesketh archive has meant cross referencing for photographs from there.

Kate Crennell is preparing a Guide for Oxford Diocese Bell Towers on CD with ‘Features of Interest’ including sundials and mass dials. Further details on 01235 834357.

Finally, and also in Oxfordshire, Mapledurham Parish Magazine is called ‘The Scratch Dial’ so presumably the parishioners are the best informed in the country about our ‘little chappies’.

Mass Dial Meanderings – March 2006

From France: an e-mail was received, requesting a bibliography of mass dials. Bernard Arquier is doing an Archaeology M.A. and studying the mass dials of southern France. It will be interesting to see if the largely English list of references is of any help to him.

The only other mass dial event was tracking down an 1896 report in Northampton Library with drawings of half a dozen dials by Sir Henry Dryden, an early pioneer.

It is perhaps an opportunity to mention pioneers in mass dial recording as, up till now, most have recorded their local dials and published their findings in the County archaeological journals. Now we are able to collect all the records together and perhaps some questions of distribution and chronology can be answered.

Ethelbert Horne in Somerset and Arthur Green in Hampshire received national recognition through publishing books based on their findings and photographs.

Amongst modern ‘pioneers’ Bob Adams in Lincolnshire must be pre-eminent. His records of the county’s dials have formed the basis for the Society’s Mass Dial Register. His Lincolnshire CD is a step into the digital era. Other recorders still with us are Edward Martin, who operated Worcestershire and the West Midlands, and Frank Poller in Berkshire/Oxfordshire. Also in Berkshire was Ted Hesketh; all these were working well before the formation of the Society.

Norfolk and Suffolk were also well covered in the 1920/30s. In addition to H. A. Harris, whose booklet is still available, the Revs. Goodwins and Chambers, G.S. Amos and H. Munro Cautley are prominent.

Lastly, David Watts in Yorkshire also did a comprehensive survey in the 1980s.

Mass Dial Meanderings – December 2005

Two days after joining the Society, Ian Hayton sent me a picture of the mass dial at St Salvator's chapel, St Andrew's University in Scotland. This was in response to a note in the Museums Survey section and is, of course, quite a rarity as 'ordinary' vertical mass dials are practically unknown in Scotland. Ian has a website up and running on Scottish sundials - www.scottishsundials.co.uk and is the man to contact if you have any questions or queries about dials up there.

A query from NADFAS about a scratch dial in Suffolk provoked quite a flurry, as Ian Butson's report for Grundisburgh appeared to have gone walkabout. I discovered that we have four large sources of Suffolk records; Lyn Stilgoe, Ian, the safari of 1999 and Mike Cowham. Putting them all into alphabetical order took four days and now they fill 14 ring files - and the report WAS found.

Suffolk was the retirement home of T.W.Cole whose list of Scratch Dials is still in print (Pierhead Publications, Herne Bay) and Ian Butson is currently trying to find out more about him. Cole's working life was in London and his list is one of our prime references. Any information about him would be welcomed by Ian.

Mike Cowham is thinking about a book on Anglo-Saxon dials, which meant digging out a host of reports and realising that the cosy little corpus of 30 or so may in fact be much larger and not so cosy after all. There are queries about quite a few and about some formerly assigned as mass dials. Again, Saxon dial experts - stand up and lend a hand!

Mass Dial Meanderings – September 2005

Firstly, a suitcaseful of reports was handed on by Edward Martin last month, in order to help with the entries to the Mass Dial Register. Specifically, Norfolk, Suffolk, Dorset, Cambridgeshire and others. The Dorset files contained a very complete archive by Gordon Le Pard which is being retained complete.

Edward Martin was the pioneer who initiated the Register and was responsible for the first complete listing, with data, of our mass dials.

Currently, other detailed county surveys are in hand: Ian Butson is covering Cambridgeshire, which was surveyed by Mike Cowham and Margaret Stanier some ten to fifteen years ago. Ian doesn’t usually need help spotting mass dials but we had to dig out those old reports and provide pictures to find some of them. Comparison of ‘then’ and ‘now’ is fascinating, as is the photo quality – dependent almost entirely on the light and not the skill of the photographer.

John Lester in North Worcestershire and myself in the Isle of Wight (five dials, two trips!) have another couple of areas buttoned up.

The big news is a mass dial from Mexico at a Spanish foundation and, since they settled all over the southern United States, there may even be mass dials in Fred Sawyer’s kingdom.

Mass Dial Meanderings – June 2005

A voice from the past, Bob Adams, whose ‘Lincolnshire Mass Dials’ is a model for the Mass Dial Register, rang with news of Welsh mass dial!
Appearing on a television programme about tsunamis, the dial at Redwick in Gwent was apparently six inches under in the 1607 tsunami which swept up the Bristol Channel and a mark just above the dial records this. Bob captured the picture from the screen and currently this is the first and only record we have.
A further note from television – and the ‘Restoration’ programme which uncovered a couple of dial-like markings at the Archbishop’s Palace in Charing, Kent. They are now confirmed to be ‘witch’s marks’ according to Chris Williams. Did we have witches at an Archbishop’s Palace?
Meanwhile, ‘Help please’. At the Conference someone gave me a picture of the mass dial at Lockington in East Yorkshire. I wrote a ‘thank you’ to Alan Watson up north but it wasn’t him – apologies – can the real recorder let me know who he is?
Also ‘thank you’ to Mike Cowham for digging out some older photos of his for me.
Anguish over a missing photograph recently was resolved when I realised that a very late ‘transitional’ dial was filed under both ‘mass’ and ‘scientific’. The dial at Sandhurst in Gloucestershire has the unequal hours of a scientific dial but is circular and with a single central gnomon hole. It is high up under some guttering and I would love to know if the gnomon hole is sloping or not. One day I will pluck up courage and ask the vicar if I can take a ladder round and poke a pencil in! Lastly, I have cheerfully re-assigned the well-known dial (see Gatty) at Dunchurch, near Rugby, to Saxon status. John Lester agrees, as it is high up by the tower bell openings and must be re-positioned. Are there others awaiting revised status? I proposed Stanford-in-the Vale, Oxfordshire in the last Bulletin and John has put a similar question mark by another I know of.

Mass Dial Meanderings – March 2005

It must be the close season for English mass dials; however, Miquel Dorca in Spain has been most active and filled my in-tray with lovely pictures of Spanish mass dials.

Which raises quite a few questions.

a) Historically, the continental mass dials, now building up to a considerable corpus, are most important. Herbert Rau, in Berlin, has summarised the reported findings in all European countries. The chronology of mass dials is difficult to determine and it is still unclear why England has so many compared with other countries, or which way they spread; but it seems likely that they arrived from across the Channel rather than that they were exported.

b) The British Sundial Society really only deals with British dials and so, although I have a fair file of continental dials from various sources they will not be recorded formally here.

I am hoping someone on the Continent can correlate the dials and Herbert Rau, as mentioned, has made a good start. The English contribution of over 3000 (by far the largest of any country) must remain separate for the moment.

We also have the additional complication of Saxon dials, which seem unique but cannot have existed in isolation on our remote island.

All of which is a plea for more thoughts on the history of mass dials from our experts.

Mass Dial Meanderings – December 2004

The database/register is now up and running, data and pictures are being entered slowly and carefully.

What is currently unusual is that most reports come from people outside the Society, only John Lester and Ian Butson send in regular supplies. Mike Cowham sent a lot of Cambridgeshire recently however, and Patrick Powers keeps finding them, either in person or from 'surfing the net'.

Three recent 'archives' have come my way recently.

First, the important Ethelbert Horne archive at Taunton Library. I visited there and acquired the complete Somerset listing of photographs copied from his original prints.

Secondly, the late Ted Hesketh amassed a considerable collection from Berkshire and Mrs Hesketh has kindly donated it to the Society. Together with Frank Poller's archive records we have Berkshire (occupied and unoccupied) well covered.

Frank is happily still with us and, although no longer Member No. 700, is still proving to be a source of information and acts as 'our man in Berks.'.

Finally, from Charing in Kent, Chris Williams has acquired a similar archive on the death of the compiler and contacted me as he wished to 'put it into shape' for publication in Kent's Archaeological Journal. He is going to let me have copies of the original manuscripts when he has finished. Kent currently has no special listing but Dick Chambers has done an extensive survey and we compared his findings with existing records - with the usual questions and queries arising as seems inevitable with mass dials.

Mention of Charing brings to mind the 'Restoration' programme on BBC from the Archbishop's Palace there, and I was encouraged to visit and see if they really had found some mass dials as claimed. Sadly, I think not; Chris Williams concurs and points out that it was an interior wall in medieval times. I did take some photos for the record and, as a by-product, also recorded Charing Church's excellent vertical dial which seems not to be in Register 2000.

The visit to Kent also enabled me to visit the NADFAS ladies (and one gentleman) in action recording Patrixbourne with its 8, 9 or 11 dials according to who you read. NADFAS are an excellent source of information as I have reported before, and provided cups of tea, sunshine and 'did I know of the dial at - '.

John Lester's records said "No photograph of dial 10, two of dial 9 by mistake". He will be delighted to know I missed dial 6 due to a film change halfway through my photography! The difference between his pictures (no sunshine) and mine (bright morning sunshine) is remarkable and not always to my advantage - lots to learn there

A quiet quarter really.

Mass Dial Meanderings – September 2004

Nicole Marquet from France sent in a beautiful picture by e-mail of a dial in the Pentland Hills, Lanarkshire. It appears to be a "modern mass dial", but could well be a re-worked old dial, which would raise lots of interesting questions, as Scotland has practically no mass dials. I am trying to find out more about what may be a "new species" - or not.

As usual, if you see it, snap it!

I'm off chasing a "new" Saxon dial shortly and if I catch it and find somewhere to put it registerwise I'll let you all know.

Mass Dial Meanderings – June 2004

So far, a quiet period on the reporting front. A brief article in ‘Sussex Notes and Queries’ was sent in by Margery Lovatt. This highlights the fact that there is a wealth of mass dial information in County Archaeological Records. If anybody comes across a similar article, please let me know; there are already four files labelled ‘County Records’ and they are valuable as guides to past dial histories. The Surrey records for Send Church enabled Doug Bateman to track down the dials there and record that some have nearly disappeared in the last forty or fifty years. There is a lifetime’s work going through the indexed records of the Society of Antiquaries Library (friendly and helpful) – any offers?

The Museums Survey (below) has thrown up three museums claiming mass dials in their collections, all in the North Hertfordshire and Bedford area. Patrick Powers has investigated the original (haunted) site of the dials claimed in Letchworth* Museum.

It is a good job there is not a taxonomy of mass dials as a new ‘species’ turned up recently: dials with ‘petals round the edge’, new to me but firmly engraved at All Saints, Grendon and St James, Idlicote, both in Warwickshire (via John Lester). Sufficiently alike and sufficiently different to encourage speculation about common origins.

Mass Dial Meanderings - September 2003

Museums Survey

Following a suggestion from Ian Butson at the last Conference, a survey of museums is being conducted with the intention of finding out which have sundials. The Sundial Register does not record dials in collections, so it is not intended to maintain complete listings, but to keep a record of those museums with dials and provide a summary of their holdings. The initial batch of 65 museums targeted has produced over 40 replies. The museums were mainly ‘County Museums’ or smaller, it is intended to contact the known larger collections later. Amongst the replies were a few that caught the eye: a dial by Eric Gill at Ditchling, a dial on which a German airman landed when parachuting from his stricken Ju 88 and a possible analemma by a patient in a mental hospital. It is hoped the Bulletin will carry further details of some of the collections and a full summary of the first phase should appear in the next Newsletter.

Mass Dials

On the mass dial front, a steady trickle of NADFAS responses has prompted me to write a ‘thank you’ letter to the editor of their magazine.

The Mass Dial register is being ‘flight tested’ at the moment; Patrick Powers has beavered away to produce a system which will produce either ‘one page per dial – with pictures’ or a ‘short form’ summary listing. The task of data entry will keep me quiet for many months.

Thanks to John Lester for his excellent Warwickshire reports, he is now combining walking and dialling, hoping to cover the whole of the county.

A recent visit to Lynsted in Kent produced what is possibly the smallest mass dial yet, about the size of a gentleman’s wrist watch!

Keep the photos coming in, get close, they don’t move and they don’t bite.

Tony Wood aowood@soft-data.net

Mass Dial Meanderings - March 2003

In case any one thinks mass dials have gone to sleep, I have to report a blizzard of them in the months of January and February. This is because I am busy assembling as many reports as possible prior to the Database/Register being set up. Provisionally, we shall go through in County alphabetical order, with Lincolnshire already available having been done by Bob Adams, and who has thereby established a pattern or style for subsequent records.

The listing is as follows:

Edward Martin has forwarded Beds. Berks. Cambs. and Bucks. reports and photographs.

I have assembled both Cornwall's dials.

Mike Cowham - 20 photographs from his Cambridge Sundial Trail.

Lyn Stilgoe - a dozen reports and photos from Norfolk and Bucks and 4 further from Romney Marsh.

Mike Cowham - 165 photographs from Beds. Cambs. and East Anglia. (on CD but see Patrick's Register Ramblings recently).

Harry Sunley - 50 photographs from Warks., Sussex, Kent et. al.

Ian Campbell - 2 reports from Cumbria

Jennifer Amos - 38 sketches/reports from Norfolk and 1 photo and at least 50 from Norfolk and Suffolk in a notebook from the 1930s plus 2 from Nottinghamshire, one hidden behind a facing stone and one closely identified from a poem!

Frank Poller has promised to lend me his collection for copying in a week or so.

Found two myself at the weekend.

Tony Wood

Mass Dial Meanderings - December 2001

Quite a busy quarter - the 'discovery' by Roger Bowling of what looks like a horizontal mass dial and subsequent appearance of another in Scotland, together with correspondence from Johan Wikander in Norway has resulted in Roger and I attempting a joint paper which we hope Margaret will publish shortly in the Bulletin.

Searching for archive space has taken a bit of time, our library in Nottingham is regarded as unsuitable so approaches to other societies for archiving dials 'of a certain age' have been made. The B.H.I. (Nottinghamshire) is a possibility. Meanwhile our corpus in record form is split between Churchdown and Clent metropolises.

An excellent bundle of reports and pictures from Ian Butson brightened my breakfast this month, he included 'location shots' and general church pictures. He also included church leaflets and labelled his photos 'this way up' - thanks Ian.

John Lester has offered to go where Andrew James feared to go (at least I think he feared to go, not too sure!) and look for the meridian line in Lewes. Not as exciting as it sounds, I'm afraid, as it is just that, not a noon line. Still, I had mentioned it to Mme Gotteland, the recorder of all meridian lines worth knowing and feel obliged to get it checked out if possible.

Keep sending the pictures in, visit that church again! The light may be better this time, a recent visit to Overbury, Worcs. resulted in six dials being found where previously I had only noted one. That one also showed changes on the photograph from the previous visit.

This is the last 'Meanderings', Jane will now have more space and for desperately vital mass dial events I will hope that Patrick will let me have a line in his 'Ramblings'.

Mass Dial Meanderings - September 2001

A quiet quarter really - before the storm of getting the Mass Dial Register in hand. Once the database is set up I can look forward to happy hours entering all your reports and ultimately producing a great big book - with pictures. John Lester has suggested that a condensed version just listing the dials and their locations would be useful and I hope this will be fairly easy to produce from the database also.

Anne Somerville is our Society Archivist and looks after material for the Fixed Dial Register but we now need a second archivist to take care of mass dial and Saxon records. Some scouting around for a suitable location is taking place, starting (at the top!) with English Heritage and using the term 'medieval dials'. A better solution would be if a member can offer sufficient space and time to look after our reports and photographs (and CD-ROMs). This is a serious concern and if anyone can offer help it would be much appreciated.

Reports from as far away as Jersey, Norway and Rutland have come in, each with a tale to tell. Roger Bowling's discovery of a horizontal mass dial, or so it seems, in Argyll has aroused interest in Norway and so I have been trying to find out when the Vikings stopped calling at Scotland on their way to Dublin. I tell people that mass dials are firmly attached to churches but there are two almost literally lying around - the one reported from Jersey and one here in Gloucestershire, inside, perched on a church windowsill these last six or seven hundred years.

Keep snapping and get close!

Mass Dial Meanderings - May 2001

Back from excellent weekend in York with pictures in camera and list of 'things to do'.

The mass dial on York Minster is unusually large and in surprisingly good condition - however; if members who took pictures could send them in, no doubt my effort will be eclipsed, especially if a tele-lens was used to advantage.

Bob Adams' 'Mass Dials of Lincolnshire' created interest and admiration; he and Patrick Powers are hoping to produce a CD-ROM under BSS auspices. Alan Cook is pursuing a similar track in Yorkshire for the O.S. square SE. SE's 100km x 100km covers most of Yorkshire and is simple to define, unlike counties. In fact, an early thought for the Mass Dial Register was to list by O.S. squares. Dorset might be another area to be covered 'Nick' Nicholls has hinted.

More e-mails in French! - resulting in another possible Meridian Line in East Sussex. Is there anyone who could venture into Lewes and track it down for us?

Mass Dial Meanderings - February 2001

First, a booklet from Germany commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the discovery of the first mass dial in that country. Copies of the booklet have been sent by Herbert Rau and I hope to get a translation done of the relevant bits and make a list of the dials referred to. It also contained an extensive bibliography - which included reference to an article: ' Medieval sundials, worthless or valuable'. Can't wait to find out!

Also more mass dials from France. The Dordogne region this time; the evidence is accumulating to say that they came across the Channel, but unless we know any firm dates nothing is proven.

Bob Adams is approaching publication of 'The Mass Dials of Lincolnshire'. As it will contain pictures it would cost a great deal to publish in conventional form. At present it is provisionally proposed to publish the text only in printed form with the illustrated version available on CD-ROM. Additionally the complete printed version could be held in Archive for photocopying specific pages on request. Any comments?

This leads to the Society's Register, which is getting nearer as the transfer of records from Edward Martin is to hand and a new database is being set up. A great deal of sorting and form filling has taken place, all the non-member notifications have to be filled in to our requirements for instance. Publication proposals are the same as for Bob's 'Lincolnshire Dials'.

Good photographs of any mass dials are very welcome as mentioned before, yours may be the best one. Experiments with tripod mounted torches might be made next season.

Keep snapping and mapping.