Wednesday 21 May 2014

Wednesday 2.

 Still just messing about with pictures . Took these at Clare last week.They show, above and below, what I think is my favourite sun dial in Suffolk. It is not the earliest by a very long way. I know of many small Suffolk Churches with 'scratch dials' or 'Mass dials', usually (for obvious reasons) on the South side of a buttress, most of which are very early. This one dates from 1790, and gives the very good advice to the citizens of Clare to 'Go about your business' or to put it another way 'Stop wasting your time studying the exact hour of the day' which, when I took the photo, was about twenty minutes to two in the afternoon. This photo will repay embiggening.

5 comments:

Crowbard said...

Hi Mike, Who invented the 24 hour sundial?

Unknown said...

Dear Car, due to the fact that nowhere on Earth does the sun shine for 24 hours a day, all year round,the twenty four hour sundial has yet to be invented.

Crowbard said...

I must apply myself to the task of designing and assembling another sun above the antipodes....
No shan't bother, I enjoy sleeping in the dark! But a 24 hour sundial would be great invention!
Are there Moon-dials? I suspect a clockwork gnomen would be needed to accommodate her vagaries... perhaps clocks would be simpler to invent (if they hadn't already been invented).

Unknown said...

Dear Crowbard. We do, of course, measure time by the sun, and I think the easiest was to do this (rather than bothering about twenty four hour sundials) would be to utilise the power from a solar panel, to drive a good quality, self regulating, self adjusting time piece, all these things being readily available.

Crowbard said...

Really Mike? How thoroughly modern of you...
I must get out more...