Last Meeting Last Meeting
The Society Calendar and general information
Society Visit to The Netherlands
Lord Grimthorpe and Cardiff's Pierhead Clock
Autumn Meeting at The Old Town Hall, Grosmont on Saturday, 4th October, 2008
The morning session was devoted to scratch dials, a topic new to this Society. Chris Williams, our first guest speaker, presented a masterly overview of scratch dials (known also as mass dials). These are simple vertical sundials, incised (scratched) on the walls of churches to indicate to the priest the correct time to call his congregation to service by ringing a bell. Chris covered the distribution of scratch dials throughout most of Northern Europe, and especially in England where thousands of scratch dials still survive. These dials are a relic of equal-hours society (with day and night each divided into 12 equal hours). Chris reviewed the history of the study and recording of scratch dials in England, and argued that these simple but useful and inexpensive dials must have been almost universally used. They were certainly in use for at least a thousand years and presumably longer, before being eventually displaced by the advent of scientific sundials and clocks and watches. A watershed line divides England into an eastern side where churches with surviving scratch dials are more numerous, and a western side with fewer churches with dials. Chris covered dial types, the frequency and numbers of dials, their survival, rate of loss (estimated at one a fortnight), and the causes of loss, namely weathering (erosion), rebuilding and neglect. These dials may well have been brightly painted in medieval times, and Chris concluded by saying: “Surviving scratch dials which we see today are only a colourless partial skeletal image of their original appearance”.
Tony Wood (co-ordinator of the Mass Dial Group of the British Sundial Society) then showed many examples of interesting scratch dials in various parts of England and the Marches, concentrating on the counties of Gloucester and Hereford.
Finally, Bill Linnard gave an account of the few known scratch dials in Wales: only 11 churches are known with scratch dials (17 dials in total), and their geographical distribution is puzzling. An article on the Welsh scratch dials is in press in ArchaeologiaCambrensis. Some of his images of Welsh scratch dials from Ewenny, Llancarfan and Penmark are shown here. The map shows the distribution in Wales of those found on churches in Wales.
PeterLane gave a brief video viewing of the clocks in Corner Farm Antiques, Weston Heath, near Newport, Shropshire.
A splendid lumch was put on by the The Angel Inn which everyone enjoyed - wonderful sausages and great apple pie!
The afternoon session began with a talk called Time in the Bible and the Bible in Time by our third guest speaker, Chris McKay. Many of us were not sure what to expect, but in the first part Chris described many methods of time-keeping mentioned in the Bible and the design and use of many types of calendar. He described in detail the ‘Dial of Ahaz’ sundial. He then switched around and the second half looked at Biblical themes in clocks, painted dials, automata and watch cases etc. More to follow.
Ed Cloutman gave a brief appraisal of the web site showing statistics by courtesy of StatCounter.com (the brown box at the end of our title page). This showed visitors to the site from as far away as Brazil, the USA, Canada, Japan, China, India, Australia, Africa and Iceland. Ed went on to describe the restoration of a 30-hour clock by Samuel Whittaker, two examples of which appear in Brian Loomes' book, Brass Dial Clocks. Loomes states that the style of the dials and hands hardly changes over the years, and this is true of this clock which has the single beautifully scupted hour hand, latched plates and other early features. The main stylistic changes are the half-hour marks on the chapter ring. Whittaker was born between 1670 and 1680 and died in 1746. He was from Middleton, near Manchester, probably the son of James. This clock probably dates around 1710 to1720. Note the rough casting marks on the movement pillar, where it has not quite been machined away, showing that it was made from a casting and not turned from cast-brass bar. Much of the movement was missing and restoration included making the complete escapement, third wheel, and warning wheel and the provision of a new lead weight and pendulum. An early-style bob was obtained from clockspares.co.uk, and lead weight from www.timerestored.co.uk. Not being able to find a suitable antique bob and weight I was pleased with both as modern replacements.
