GRADE 1. C12 chancel, nave; continuing development; Largely rebuilt C16, tower in C17. Mid-Victorian restoration (Cutts). Cotswolds, between Winchcombe and Stow-on-the-Wold. 51.949 / -1.8685 / SP091278

DIAL

TWC in his 1935 ‘Origins and Use of Scratch Dials’ includes Temple Guiting in his county lists (along with nearby Guiting Power). There is no other information that I can find in any of the usual resources nor going beyond them. The century-by-century work on this church make it hard to know where to look, especially as stones may have been relocated or even removed.

STOP PRESS

Within an hour of posting this, more research revealed Guiting sightings of 3 dials. An article by Rev. P. Sullivan for the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society (1924, Vol 46, 169-86) lists many Glos. dials including the following:

All are quite high up, which is no real excuse for missing all of them, even when in a hurry. I clearly need to go back. Please stop here unless you want to check out a less obvious / certain dial…

With limited time for a visit, the only dial-like marks I could find were under window of the transept (if that’s the right term) on the N. side. There are 2 clear lines; one faint line; and a couple of possibles but too eroded to be sure. I may easily have missed a real dial(s); this is the candidate I noticed.

My thoughts are that this is a small, simple dial cut on an older-seeming stone; that it has been relocated, presumably from the S. front; and that it has been rotated 90º anticlockwise. There’s the hint of a filled style hole below the dark patch that looks different from the lichen.

GSS Category: Scratch Dial

Photos: Keith Salvesen