A Church Sundial

A stick or gnomon was inserted in the centre and its shadow in the sun indicated the time for the Terce (9am), Sext (12pm) and None (3pm) masses. This tells us the stone has been reused. It belongs on the south outside of a church. This is an 19thC wall but the stone must be from when masses were regularly held ie before the break from Rome in the 16thC. The carved marks are at least 500 years old, (the stone itself is 100,000 times older). They may be a century or two older as they mean the church didn’t have a clock and bell. Some cathedrals had (water) clocks in the 13th C. The oldest workimg clock in the world is 14thC (in Salisbury Cathedral). Church clocks were common by the 16thC. Clocks like that at St Lawrence were common by the 17thC, that at St Lawrence and the tower that houses it are from the first half of the 18thC.

The stone wouldn’t have been placed so inaccessibly high up originally. Carting masonry long distances was difficult so this probably came from a local church. It could have been from St Lawrence, St Peter, St John, St Nicholas, St Ethelreda or Holy Cross or even either of the (Old) Sarum Cathedrals, most of these had disappeaed by the time this wall was built, all were within 4/5 mile.

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Mass dials date from the 7th C when Pope Sabinian decreed their use. They were for use by the priests and congregation of that one church. Even two hundred years ago time was still local time for local use, without any more widespread meaning, time wasn’t standardised until railways made it essential (1840).