Sculpture

Sundial restoration for Saughton public park in Edinburgh

South dial restored with new bronze gnomon and stone conservation

Photo: City of Edinburgh Council

Sundial restoration is always interesting. Each case is different. Sometimes the sundial is historic and may need research. An eye for sculpture shapes and architecture is useful. There can be tricky calculations of geometry. The right use of materials and surface patination comes into it. And of course every restoration has to make the sundial work and read the time in sunshine.

The photo shows one of the dials on the monumental sundial in the walled garden at Saughton Park in Edinburgh. Continue reading

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Oak leaf sundial art

Oak leaf sundial

This beautiful sculpture projects the shadow of oak leaves etched in glass onto the carved sundial panel behind. The shadow of a single oak bud falls in exactly the right place to tell the time.

There is so much pleasure in owning a work of art done by a friend. For a sundial person the pleasure is even greater when this is a sculpture that can show the time. Today we set the sculpture up at home and we were amazed how beautifully it comes to life in sunshine. All the fundamentals of a sundial underlie this marvellous creation. Continue reading

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A sundials tour of parks and gardens in Edinburgh

Ancient sundial of Scotland at Fettes College

This historic sundial probably dates from the 1630s. It was placed in its present position in 1893.

This year’s sundials tour visited parks and gardens in Edinburgh. It is the latest in a series of large and small events to help raise funds for the YACHT project at Greenbank Church, which supports ‘Youth at CHurch Today’. In recent years the tour has been to George Heriot’s School and the National Museum of Scotland (2017), and Lennoxlove near Haddington (2015).

This year we were a group of nine who heard about a fascinating background of art, science, history, and people. Continue reading

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Kinloch Anderson Sundial Restored at Inverleith Park

Inverleith Park sundial restored in 2018

The Inverleith Park sundial originally gifted by Edinburgh firm Kinloch Anderson in 1890 was newly restored by the same company in June 2018.

It was a great day seeing the Kinloch Anderson sundial fully restored at Inverleith Park on Saturday 16th June 2018. It marks 150 years since 1868 when the company was founded. The company held a celebration party for their many guests. The Lord Provost of Edinburgh Continue reading

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Display sundial has been a shining success

Hourdial horizontal sundial design by Macmillan Hunter Sundials

The sundial is a modern design in polished stainless steel and brass. The gnomon has an exact angle of inclination and an interlocking sculpture form. The dial plate has precise hour lines and numbers created by a highly skilled process of photoetching.

Since 2012 when it was first put on display at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London our Hourdial sundial has been a shining success. It has been the most popular of our different sundial designs. Since the time of that first exhibit our sundials business has grown in all kinds of ways. Continue reading

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A sundial commission with a circular Enoch calendar

Sundial commission with a circular Enoch calendarOne or two years ago we had a general enquiry about making a sundial with a calendar marked on it. Some sundials are marked with a calendar in a graphical form like an elongated figure-of-eight. This is called the analemma, and it might have been the answer to the enquiry. In fact our own Solar Time sundial is a design that displays the analemma.

Read the complete story in the attached article, A SUNDIAL COMMISSION WITH A CIRCULAR ENOCH CALENDAR.

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Dihelion sundial sculpture measures winter sunshine

Dihelion sundial sculpture in winter sunshine

This dual sundial captures the time of day and the season of the year with two separate gnomons, which cast two separate shadows. In this photo the season gnomon casts its shadow in winter sunshine. The shadow falls at a low angle and crosses a sundial marker for Winter Solstice.

It is always intriguing to see how many different measurements can be made with a sundial, and in how many different ways. The Dihelion sundial measures in two ways, and you wait for a whole year before the measurements repeat themselves, but it is always fascinating. The photo catches a moment of winter sunshine when Dihelion throws a shadow at a shallow angle across a winter solstice marker. Continue reading

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Friends of Inverleith Park Invite Speaker on Sundials

Kinloch Anderson sundial in Inverleith Park, Edinburgh.

This stone sundial, erected in 1890 in the new Inverleith Park in Edinburgh, was presented by Councillor Kinloch Anderson. [Photo: Dennis Cowan]

The Friends of Inverleith Park take great pride in their large popular park in the City of Edinburgh. There is a sundial garden and a historic sundial monument. For their AGM on 27 November, the Friends invited Alastair Hunter to speak on the subject of ‘A Look at Sundials’. He showed pictures of old and new sundials, and explained how this ancient method of finding time by the sun continues to be reborn today Continue reading

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A sundials tour at Heriot’s and the Museum in Edinburgh

Sundial sculpture in bronze with sun symbolsThis marvellous small sundial sculpture sits on a wall of one of the classrooms for the youngest children at George Heriot’s School in Edinburgh. We looked at it closely during our tour of sundials in the school this morning. The sculptor and probably the children as well have introduced a number of lovely features into this piece. There is the beautifully modelled hawk and globe, which is an ancient Egyptian symbol of the sun god, there is the mouse and some lines of poetry from Robert Burns, and there is the T-square remembering the late architect Bob Clunas who designed the building. Continue reading

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Edinburgh Probus Braids Club talk

Historic sundial at Holyrood Palace, Scotland

Historic sundial at Palace of Holyrood commissioned by King Charles I for his Scottish coronation in 1633.

It is always interesting to see how people will react to a sundials talk. I usually say they are in the majority if they know nothing at all about this fascinating yet unfamiliar subject. In the 21st century sundials have largely been forgotten, but I try to explain how sundials were once an essential part of the science of timekeeping. Their designs spanned an extraordinary range from purely functional to wildly exuberant sculpture monuments. Today those old traditions of imaginative design are still alive, providing new generations with pleasure and enjoyment from timeless and beautiful sundials.

You can see the slides for my talk here, PROBUS EDINBURGH TALK ON SUNDIALS – Copyright Macmillan Hunter 2017.

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