Armillary Sphere British Sundial Society – GAUDIUM SUB SOLE . SUNDIALS . MEDIEVAL TO MODERN

ROSEMOOR GARDENS

Renowned RHS gardens near Torrington, Devon. It’s a wonderful place. You can find out all about it HERE. For present purposes, the focus is on the very fine sundial installed in the gardens in 2004. This is a project of the BRITISH SUNDIAL SOCIETY and the description below is from the BSS record:

This is an unusual dial in the form of a triangular section pillar made of Delabole slate and 1820mm high. It was designed by Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd and made by Ben Jones. It carries a motto on the 610mm diameter slate base ‘But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden be remembered’ (T.S.Eliot, modified from a passage in Burnt Norton, the first of the Four Quartets).

On two of the faces are pairs of declining dials one above the other. The upper ones are drawn for December to June and the lower ones for June to December. The hour lines are corrected for the Equation of Time.There are three declination lines on each dial. Arabic numerals are used and the dials show BST. The easterly dial shows 5:30am to 1:30pm in half and quarter hours while the westerly dial shows 12:30pm to 9:30pm similarly divided. The north dial has dedications to V M Dickinson, M J C Wright, H Addy and R Addy.

DIAL IMAGES 1

DIAL IMAGES 2

Images taken from the designer’s magisterial book Sundials: History, Art, People, Science. The design below seems an excellent example of art meeting science.

GSS Category: Pillar Dial; Modern Sundial; Pillar Sundial

Credits: Photos by John Renner; material from the book by Mark Lennox-Boyd; British Sundial Society

BRITISH SUNDIAL SOCIETY . ARMILLARY SPHERE . PARADE GARDENS . BATH

*Armillary Sphere . Parade Gardens . Bath*

The plaque above gives all the details (including a bar code) necessary to admire and appreciate this excellent armillary sphere that was installed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the foundation of BSS. My visit to Bath was spoiled by bad weather: gloom with only occasional respite from rain. Hence these rather unsatisfactory photos, which I have had to cheer up somewhat. I intend to replace them in due course, when a visit to Bath coincides with sunshine. The Motto, explained below, describes my predicament.

The gallery of images below gives a 360º view of the dial against glimpses of the Bath setting. One or two are meant to be ‘arty’, never my strong suit.

MOTTO

‘I ONLY RECKON THE BRIGHT HOURS’ is the translation given by Margaret Gatty (p.45 of the compact volume). Other versions include I ONLY COUNT CLEAR HOURS and I ONLY COUNT THE HOURS THAT ARE SERENE. MG wrote (of the succinct Latin version) that the motto is too good to be uncommon, and gives a number of locations where it may be found in England, Scotland, and (unexpectedly) Venice, of which Hazlitt wrote …there is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. None of the above modern motto variations works very well; it’s hard to come up with a translation as elegant as the original in Latin. The word ‘serenas’ is the real problem….

ADDENDUM Dictionary research including Chambers – far the best for archaic words and usages – clarifies the motto. A subsidiary meaning of ‘serene’ was, in the past, ‘an expanse of clear sky’; ‘cloudless’; or in one source, ‘sunny’. On countless modern sundials, this Latin formulation is the familiar I only count the sunny hours.