Do you recognise the sundial on the left? The photo was taken from a window of the Special Exhibition Room at the front of the Museum on a lovely sunny day. A hint to help you decipher the shadow is that I generally volunteer on a Sunday morning.
I recently visited the Horniman Museum in South London and found a stained glass sundial there in a courtyard at the back – very lovely colours and design, but even more difficult than ours to decipher!
To help us tell the time the Horniman Museum provided this useful notice.
I admit that I do not understand why some ‘sun’ days are longer than others, but this notice helps me to be a little more precise with my time-keeping. I think our sundial shows 10 past 11. So if it was summertime in July, I would add one hour and then (using the graph) add approximately a further 7 minutes.
I haven’t been able to discover if our sundial was part of the original structure of the Old Market Hall or whether it was added later as have several of the decorations such as the Duke of York who was brought here from the old Welsh Bridge. The Hall was built in 1596/7 and, at that time, the buildings on the south side of The Square were much lower, so that this façade must have received more direct sunlight and the sundial could possibly have been seen from a greater distance.
Rosemary Thornes
