SHIPTON BELLINGER . HANTS . ST PETER – Scratch Dials – GAUDIUM SUB SOLE . SUNDIALS . MEDIEVAL TO MODERN

ST PETER . SHIPTON BELLINGER . HANTS

GRADE II † C14 origins; very little remains of the original church. Almost all refaced, restored (Withers 1879) or rebuilt. Registers date from mid-C16. Attractive with its squat wooden bell turret. Just N of A303 between Andover and Amesbury. 51.2076 / -1.6678 / SU233454

DIALS

There are 2 dials recorded for St Peter, of quite different types. Dial 1 is a simple filled hole in the centre of a circle, without additional markings. Dial 2 is a sector of a fairly large dial that must have covered 2 or more stones.

DIAL 1

Dial 1 is inside the porch L of the doorway, quite low down. It consists of a filled central hole within a circle, with a pock (possibly unrelated) ULQ. With a rod as a gnomon, it would work as a basic marker of the the passing day, though at an inconvenient level if in its original position. The unusual shape of the large dial stone also suggests a significant relocation somewhere in the time-line of the various building works. One record dates the dial to C11, which seems unrealistic – it predates the known origins of the church. Also noted were faint traces of a similar circle LLQ, but I could not detect anything significant. There is a further possibility that, rather than a dial, this design is one of the many forms of ritual protection mark. However the size and the filled hole suggest not.

DIAL 2

Located on S wall of the Nave, E of door, W of E Nave buttress, and about 2m high. All that can be seen is the LLQ part-perimeter of a quite large dial (if it is one) cut in the upper R corner of a large stone with no discernible dial-ish markings. Basically it is a plain quarter-circle using the mortar lines for the straights, and with a gnomon hole (not now obvious) in upper R corner. To work as a dial in that (or in any different) position, it would have required one additional stone if a semicircle; or at least 2 more if a complete circle. The absence of any lines or pocks on this fragment militates against it being part of a scratch dial. It would have been hard to resist using such a large blank area as a creative area for a proper dial design. Quite plausibly, this curved incision was part of some decorative feature displaced during rebuilding, with companion stones used elsewhere where needed.