SUNDIAL

A complete copper alloy pocket or portable sundial dating to the post-medieval period (c. AD 1600-1800). circular in plan, and made up of two annular bands which have been soldered together internally where a drawn wire semi-circular loop attaches them together at their outer edges. This loop would have attached to a chain so that the sundial could be suspended and to a band or 'nodus'. The nodus would have run along the central groove and was completed by a washer-like ring and it was the spot of sunlight passing through this ring on to the inside of the dial which was used to indicate the time. The dots and the gradations would permit fractions of an hour to be read when the dial was aligned to the sun according to the date read from the outer side.

At the point where the band is pierced the upper half has the letters I A S O N D stamped on it (for the second six months of the year) facing upwards. On the lower half are the letters I F M A M I for the first six months, facing downwards. The inner face shows two bands of numbers bordered and separated by four engraved parallel longitudinal lines reading from left to right above: 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 and below: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. The number 12 appears midway between the two lines. Three more letters appear to the right of the numbers; S / H / W. All the numbers lie approximately opposite the point on the outer face of the band where the months are marked and where the band is pierced.

Unusually there is further decoration on the external band, consisting of punched scroll decoration and an incised motto or poem reading 'None so true / give me my du' over two lines with scrolled decoration either side. Again the letters SHW appear on one line with the letters TW below; they are porbably the maker's initials as they appear on other examples (i.e. SWYOR-E841F7).

Pocket or 'poke' sundials are occasionally found by detectorists but are often broken and bent. Those bearing mottos are very unusual - of the c.100 pocket sundials recorded on the PAS database only a handful have mottos, all associated with time; SOM-1A3D11 (Vse me well & [...]ll be// A better servant unto thee); CORN-9F6899 (The Life of dying man / Is measured by a Span); IOW-EA5F72 (As time and hours pass away/So doth life of man decay).