In a land renowned for its clocks and watches a Swiss couple have chosen our Orbdial sundial to mark the hours in their historic garden set on a hill above Montreux, overlooking Lac Leman, which they are restoring to former glories. The sundial has a handsome polished pedestal in pink and yellow veined marble from Verona. The couple wanted to see the colours of sunrise and sunset in the sky picked up by the sundial and the stone. In Victorian times this house welcomed figures from music and the arts, including Gertrude Jekyll the influential garden designer. Continue reading
Time
When Time Stands Still at Winter Solstice
Three weeks now till Christmas when time stands still for excited children opening their presents. Strangely, also on the twenty-fifth of December, clocks and sundials read the same time as each other, because the equation of time is zero. Winter solstice when the sun stands still is a few days earlier. This year it is on the twenty-second of December.
It seems a while since the sunshine was warm Continue reading
The sun takes its time for new Dihelion sundial in the Savill Garden
After a time the sun did shine when we were setting up our new Dihelion sundial sculpture at the Savill Garden, Surrey. The sun was out just long enough to align the sundial before we left. Dihelion is now fully installed and ready to view as part of the Savill Garden’s annual sculpture exhibition ‘Sculpture in the Garden’ Continue reading
Dihelion a new sundial design at the Savill Garden sculpture exhibition
In a break with previous sundials an original new design has been created that has two shadows, one showing the time of day and another the season of the year. This adds more pleasure to having a sundial in a garden. The design has been named DIHELION meaning ‘dual sun’ after the ancient Greek words. The sundial will be launched to the public on 1 September at ‘Sculpture in the Garden’, the annual sculpture exhibition at The Savill Garden, Windsor, Berkshire.
It is thought the concept of DIHELION having two shadows Continue reading
NADFAS Scotland Talk on Sundials
Telling time through the ages
Sundial expert and student of time Kevin Karney gave another of his fascinating talks on telling time through the ages to the audience of NADFAS members at their monthly meeting held in the Victoria Halls, Helensburgh, on Tuesday this week. NADFAS, the National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies, is a leading arts charity and this was the second group in the Scotland and Northern Ireland area to have invited Kevin to speak recently Continue reading
Science Sundial for Kilgraston School
Kilgraston independent school for girls has added a Solar Time precision sundial to the teaching facilities at their new science centre, which opened in 2014 on Kilgraston’s beautiful campus in Perthshire, Scotland. This unique sundial Continue reading
Murrayfield garden sundial
While North played South in international rugby at Murrayfield stadium, Edinburgh—where Scotland met and won against Argentina on Saturday—we were only a drop-kick’s distance away proudly installing a new south-facing Solar Time sundial in a Murrayfield private garden. This was a special installation for a special person—a 50th birthday present from wife to husband Continue reading
Modern sundial timepieces
It was an honour to be invited to give a talk at the monthly meeting of the British Horological Institute East of Scotland Branch at Edinburgh in February. Alastair Hunter received the invitation from Branch Secretary Ashley Strachan back in September 2012 when they agreed he should speak on the subject of ‘Modern Sundial Timepieces’. Continue reading
Do We Know The Time?
Do we know the time, I wonder where the time goes, where are you going this time? Writing on 1 October in The Times(!), David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, talks about different experiences of time—time running, time circling round, time swinging like a pendulum, time staying still. Of course these are real experiences—we think and plan for now and for the time ahead, we’re aware that night and day go round and round, inside ourselves we feel the rhythms and beat of musical time, when we’re absorbed time seems to stop and disappear. These are some of our experiences, do they help us know the time, I wonder? Continue reading
What is a Noondial?
The noon dial or noon mark is an ancient way for telling the time of midday. The sun is at its highest and is due south then.
By the eighteenth century, and continuing until the early twentieth century, noon dials and other types of sundial were used for setting clocks and watches. The method for working out clock time needed the Equation of Time, because clock time is the average of sundial time round the year. Continue reading