A straightforward modern commemorative dial at Minterne House in Dorset, bestowed by the National Gardening Scheme. When I took these photos recently, I forgot to check whether the very pretty pedestal dial that was originally… More
SOUTH BREWHAM . SOMERSET . St John the Baptist – Vertical Dial
GRADE II* ✣ C13 origins; rebuilding / restoration late C19. Use of local Doulting stone. More to this church than some brief mentions allow – for example the interior layout. See instead the detailed BLB entry HERE Also this, for Brass enthusiasts: two small brasses of 1673 and 1690 to Edward Bennet and his wife Susan, the latter signed in copperplate lettering: Guliet Cockey de Wincanto(n), Reputed to be the only such signed brass found in Somerset. Part of the churchyard is managed as a wildlife site under the Living Churchyard project. 51.1239 / 51°7’25″N; -2.4019 / 2°24’6″W / ST719361
VERTICAL DIAL
The dial is situated high up on E quoin of S face of the tower. The dial-stone is large and eroded to the extent that there are no visible dial features or markings. Perhaps there never were. The ‘iron rod’ gnomon is pleasingly simple, and from some angles makes a square frame.
SCRATCH DIALS: see https://gaudiumsubsole.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=24465&action=edit
GSS Category: Vertical Dial; Vertical Dial Church; Gnomon details;
All photos: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour
OVING . SUSSEX W . St Andrew’s Church
GRADE II ❖ C13 / E.E. Cruciform; W tower with shingled spire. Roughcast facing. Very attractive small medieval church, little restored (BLB). Approved by Pevsner (unusually harmonious…the showpiece is N doorway in a simple but very sophisticated style). 4 miles E of Chichester. 50.8379 -0.722 / SU900050
DIALS
A ‘matched’ pair of dials on either side of the priest’s entrance, unusually cut at exactly the same level.
DIAL 1
Very much a ‘morning dial’, with a curve of dots LLQ 9 – 12. Damage makes it hard to assess the number, but at least 6 (perhaps a group of 3 marking the noon-line?). The gnomon hole is deep and was probably enlarged / damaged much later – it looks very neatly drilled. Of particular note is the faint circle border that looks, in sunlight, almost complete. An optimist might suggest the hint of an outer circle, esp. LLQ.
DIAL 2
Level with its companion dial, this one is badly eroded / damaged. The gnomon hole is central, and there are visible dial features. Of these, the clearest is the radial at ‘9’, suggesting that mid morning was the main time for observance. I wondered when and why the grey ‘wash’ was applied
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WARTIME GRAFFITI: CLOSE BY IS RAF TANGMERE WHICH PLAYED SUCH A VITAL AND DECISIVE ROLE IN THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN, 1940.
GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Priest’s Door Dials; Dial Pairs
All photos: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour
KINGSDON . SOMERSET – All Saints
ALL SAINTS . KINGSDON . SOMERSET
GRADE II* ❖ Dates from C13th; Original N tower replaced C15 with W tower; revisions and renovation until full restoration 1869, with further work 1906. Local lias. Halfway between Ilchester / Somerton. 51.0331 / -2.692 / ST515262
DIALS
DEH visited on Oct 1st 2014. He found 3 dials and gave a longer account than usual. Dial 1 is on E buttress of the Tower, at head height. Dial 2 is on W side of S porch. The 3rd dial is low down within the porch, on E side.
There is also a rather splendid though much worn vertical dial high up on the same buttress as Dial 1. DEH either missed it (because he was examining the south side at usual dial level); or perhaps he saw it and decided it was outside the scope of his scrutiny (see below).
DIAL 1
There are 8 radials. The configuration suggests a noon arrangement of 5 lines with quite accurate spacing and line length. The other 3 radials seem to have been added rather rustically RHS at a later date. The plugged gnomon hole is still discernible in the mortar line.
DIAL 2
I either forgot to photograph this dial, or my camera and I had a misunderstanding. The dial is on W side of S porch. DEH noted: It is 5 feet 5 inches above the ground, the noonline is about 5 inches in length, and the style hole is open and badly shaped.
DIAL 3
The dial is within the present porch, RHS of the the original church door. Before the outer porch was added, the dial may have served well as a time-of-day checker for passers-by, or perhaps for an Acolyte to keep an eye on before ringing the bell for a service. Later, it becomes decoration.
VERTICAL DIAL
The dial is unusually high up for a country church, and the finer details must have been rather lost on viewers. It is now badly damaged and in need of some TLC before it flakes away. I will probably write it up for my Vertical Dial page, however of interest include: the simple horizontal iron gnomon; the carefully graduated lines; the numbers being within a frame; and the use of IIII for IV.
GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Scratch Dial within Porch; Somerset Scratch Dials; Vertical Dial
All photos: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour
KEINTON MANDEVILLE . SOMERSET – St Mary Magdelene
ST MARY MAGDALENE . KEINTON MANDEVILLE . SOMERSET
GRADE II ✢ C13 chancel; remainder C19. C12 font. Local lias stone prettily incised PEV. Tower so simple it could be early C20 BHO. Midway between Somerton and Castle Cary. 51.068 / -2.647 / ST547300
DIALS
DEH visited on May 26th 1914. He recorded two dials close together on the quoins on SE corner, one above the other. These differ quite markedly. Dial 1, the lower, is simple though not rustic. A few inches above, Dial 2 is more sophisticated, presumably cut to improve on the earlier dial.
DIAL 1
The lower of the 2 dials is straightforward. 3 radials descend for from a large (now) gnomon hole. The noon line is flanked by a line either side. The spacing is more or less accurate. The line of dots on the radial RLQ, if deliberate, may have been Mass-markers for the main time of observance – after noon.
DIAL 2
This dial has 5 radials (perhaps 6) and a large quite deep gnomon hole. Two almost vertical lines are deeper cut and end in small holes. This arrangement suggests noon may have been the Mass-time, marked from mid morning. The most interesting feature is the faint arc of a circle RHS. In places, there is the hint of a secondary circle. One must presume that at one time the rings were complete but are long-since worn away.
GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Time-marking; Somerset Scratch Dials
All photos: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour
BARTON ST DAVID . SOMERSET – St David
ST DAVID . BARTON ST DAVID . SOMERSET
GRADE II* ❖ C12 to C15, with major C19 restoration. Local lias stone. Cruciform plan. Tower octagonal, in three stages, probably C15. In an area with several octagonal tower churches, this is the only one with 3 stages. Earliest recorded rector 1309. Close to Keinton Mandeville (2 dials). 3m NE of Somerton. 51.0828 / -2.6585 / ST539317
DIAL
DEH visited on 26 May 1914. On W side of the blocked doorway on S side of the church, he found a dial low down. He noted a 5 inch noon line and a blocked style-hole in the mortar joint.
Eventually I found the dial, LHS amidst ivy both alive and dead. Its position close to ground level renders it useless for its purpose, yet it doesn’t seem to have been relocated. The ‘design’ consists of 4, perhaps 5, spidery radials descending untidily from the mortar line. It is 100+ years and a lot of ivy since DEH recorded the dial, and we can predict that it will soon be concealed by ivy, or eroded away.
B & W COMPARISON
A fine Squint and a handsome Norman doorway
GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Church erosion; Squint; Norman Doorway
All photos: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour except excellent main photo, Geoff Pick / Wiki
BABCARY . SOMERSET – Holy Cross
CHURCH OF THE HOLY CROSS . BABCARY . SOMERSET
GRADE II* ❖ Early origins; mainly C14 / C15; additions C19 (inc. Ferrey). PEV gives this small church quite a detailed entry. This is lias stone country. The building, the churchyard, and the setting make this a fine country church. There are 2 scratch dials. Visited by DEH on 10 Sept 1912. 12m N of Yeovil. 51.0566 / -2.6271 / ST561287
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DIAL 1
On a quoin stone W side of S porch, the gnomon hole easily seen. DEH calls it a faint scratchy dial, and thought that the hole may still contain the style. He seems not to have checked; later in his dialing project, he would have. There’s no trace now.
DIAL 2
A few inches above Dial 1 is an indistinct dial, noted by DEH. But for his careful records, no one would notice it now, a century later. 4 faint and somewhat wonky radials can just be made out LLQ, descending from a shallow hole now covered by lichen. This has a slight bluish tinge suggestive of a copper rod being used as a gnomon, a speculation too far.
GGS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Somerset Scratch Dial
All photos: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour
SOUTH BREWHAM . SOMERSET – St John the Baptist
ST JOHN THE BAPTIST . SOUTH BREWHAM . SOMERSET
GRADE II* ❖ C13 origins; subsequent interventions; much rebuilt late C19 with local stone cut and squared. 2-stage tower. 2 scratch dials and a vertical dial. Interesting and varied graffiti. A rewarding church to visit. 3m NE of Bruton. 51.1239 / 51°7’25″N / ST719361
DIALS
DEH visited St John on April 17th 1914, on his motorbike and with his camera. He recorded two scratch dials. Dial 1 is on E side of S porch. It has changed significantly since DEH recorded it in 1914. Dial 2 is on E side of the inner door of S porch, unchanged. The vertical dial at the top of the E buttress of the tower will be dealt with separately.
DIAL 1
DIAL 1, with its large and damaged gnomon hole, is clearly visible as one approaches the church. The DEH photo above shows that in 1914, it had quite accurately cut even-spaced ‘6 – 6’ radials within a semicircle. A century later, erosion has reduced definable radials to 9, with overall decay of the lines. However, in the intervening years the noon-line has been cut deeper, and now extends onto the stone below.
GNOMON
DEH describes ‘part of the iron style… (is) level with the face of the stone, but rusted away at the sides’. It’s pleasing to find that it is still there. It’s not especially rare to find the remains of a metal rod gnomon, however most if not all those extant will have been put in place very much later than the date that the dial was cut.
DIAL 2
Stepping into the porch, Dial 2 is immediately visible. There are 5 radials descending from the mortar line. Pleasingly simple, and it is interesting to note that the photographs of this dial, almost a century apart, are much the same.
DOM ETHELBERT HORNE’S PHOTOS (April 17th 1914)
GRAFFITI
GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Iron Gnomon; Church Graffiti
Photos: Keith Salvesen; Dom Ethelbert Horne
CROSCOMBE . SOMERSET – St Mary the Virgin
ST MARY THE VIRGIN . CROSCOMBE
GRADE 1 ❖ Mainly C15, C16; C19 restoration. Plenty of interest for the visitor / church crawler, including C15 wagon roof; particularly well furnished interior BLB; box pews; fine Jacobean woodwork. Peal of 6 bells (earliest 1613). Inc. by Simon Jenkins in ‘England’s Thousand Best Churches’, with photo. 51.1975 / -2.5873 / ST590444
DIAL
The existence of a scratch dial is debatable. The church was one of the earliest visited by DEH, on October 8th 1911. His record is one of the shortest of his entire project: On the buttress to the W of the priest’s door into the chancel is a stylehole at a height of 5′ 10″ from the ground. There are no remains of either a circle or lines, but from the soft nature of the stone they may have been weathered away.
Points in favour of dial status include its central position on the stone and the height. Against is the peculiarity of the hole itself; and the fact that the stone shows no sign of weathering, even 100+ years later,
GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Doubtful Dail eg
Photos: Keith Salvesen
DINDER . SOMERSET – St Michael
ST MICHAEL . DINDER . SOMERSET
GRADE II* ❖ Norman origins, C14 work, rebuilt C15, restored 1872. An attractive church both outside and in. Visited by DEH on 6 Oct 1911 on one of his early dial expeditions from Downside Abbey. Roughly halfway between Wells and Shepton Mallet. 51.199 / -2.6094 / ST575446
DIAL
DEH recorded a single dial on W corner of S aisle. He noted a 2.5 inch deep gnomon hole, and commented ‘…this dial is cut on soft red sandstone and has all 12 hour lines… many of them probably added to the original design’. More than 100 years later, only 9 are legible.
GSS Category: Scratch Dial; Mass Dial; Dial erosion
All photos: Keith Salvesen / Rolling Harbour
SUNDIALS & COMMERCE: MORRIS’S CIGARETTE CARDS
MORRIS’S CIGARETTE CARDS
In the late C19, the first series of collectable themed cards were devised in America to encourage trade. The idea caught on, and these early examples of product placement gradually spread. Sportsmen (Cricketers), Nature, Actors, Military and Important People, were among the topics. By the turn of the century, British companies had taken up the challenge.
In 1924, Sundials became a novelty theme. The Phillip Morris Tobacco Company produced a set of 25 cards with the name Measurement of Time, the subject of this post. In the same year an astonishing set of 50 cards Ancient Sundials was produced by Fry’s (Chocolate) – see HERE. In 1928 a set of 25 cards Old Sundials by W.D. & H.O. Wills returned to the tobacco theme – see HERE
Besides covering a large number of dials from all parts of Britain, the obverse of the cards had a sundial-and-product motto or a pithy ditty. The collectors’ pages below show the front and the backs separately. Please note that you will have to read the text sides in reverse order to match the description to the correct dial.
Note: the 2 header images compensate for the 2 very poor photos (10, 11) that caught some glare.
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY: Explore the Cigarette Card Collection HERE
The British Sundial Society (BSS) has recently (2025) featured an excellent 5-page article by Martin Jenkins in the quarterly BSS Bulletin Vol. 37(iv) December 2025. It contains fascinating analyses of the dials including accuracy. A joy to read for any serious diallist!
GSS Category: Sundial cards; Sundial Art; Sundials in Commerce; Sundial picture sets; Composed mottos; Sundials in advertising.
GAUDIUM SUB SOLE: Scratch Dials & Sundials Medieval to Modern 