Re: Sundials worthy of a tour in England
Dear Sarah, In Bath, the Pump Room, just next to Bath Abbey, and adjoining the Roman Baths, is a place to visit in its own right, but it also has a Thomas Tompion sundial just outside a window overlooking the King's Bath. It is/was used to regulate the Tompion long-case clock which stands at the same end of the Pump Room which has an equation of time correction indicator built into it. Quite exceptional. In Parade Gardens, just a short distance away, is an armillary sphere (which I designed as a replacement for an earlier dial of the same pattern which had been stolen in 1990's which stood on the same 'dolphin' pillar since early 20th century. Best wishes, David Brown Somerton, Somerset, UK Schechner, Sara Dear Kevin (and other members of the Sundial List), I am leading a Harvard Museums of Science and Culture tour to England at the end of September 2013 on the theme of Time, in conjunction with an exhibition I am curating at Harvard called Time and Time Again: How Science and Culture Shape the Past, Present, and Future.(The exhibition will have more sundials than you can shake a stick at, and I'll write more about it in another letter.) The tour will be in London, Greenwich, Oxford, Bath, Lyme Regis, and Salisbury, and maybe York. I am familiar with the museum collections at Oxford, Greenwich, and the British Museum, but less so of mass /church sundials, Saxon dials, and other historical ones that a coach could stop at en route to somewhere or as part of a tour. I would love to hear your ideas! Sara 42°36'N 71° 22'W West Newton, MA 02465 --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
Sundials worthy of a tour in England
Dear Kevin (and other members of the Sundial List), I am leading a Harvard Museums of Science and Culture tour to England at the end of September 2013 on the theme of Time, in conjunction with an exhibition I am curating at Harvard called Time and Time Again: How Science and Culture Shape the Past, Present, and Future.(The exhibition will have more sundials than you can shake a stick at, and I'll write more about it in another letter.) The tour will be in London, Greenwich, Oxford, Bath, Lyme Regis, and Salisbury, and maybe York. I am familiar with the museum collections at Oxford, Greenwich, and the British Museum, but less so of mass /church sundials, Saxon dials, and other historical ones that a coach could stop at en route to somewhere or as part of a tour. I would love to hear your ideas! Sara 42°36'N 71° 22'W West Newton, MA 02465 --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
RE: Sundials worthy of a tour in England
Excellent idea! I'll suggest that we head to Durham! Thanks! From: Frank Evans [mailto:frankev...@zooplankton.co.uk] Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 10:26 AM To: Schechner, Sara Subject: Re: Sundials worthy of a tour in England Dear Sara, You are following the usual visitor route in England, i.e. only calling at the bottom half. There are no Roman dials in England and the two oldest are Anglo-Saxon dials in the north. One, the Anglo-Saxon dial at Escomb, County Durham, (BSS Register 4752) from around 700, is an absolute gem in a gem of an entirely Anglo-Saxon church. In the same county is Durham Cathedral with its noon line (BSS Register 0825) for regulating the church clocks. The cathedral is another knock-out, claimed to be the finest Romanesque building in the world, on a spectacular headland and defended by its own castle. You should consider this, and there are plenty more dials of interest locally including several more Anglo-Saxon ones. Also, of course, this part of the world is stuffed with history, the original home of railways, turbines, electric light and Hadrian's Wall, also Georgian town centres and more castles than the Rhine, not to mention the odd Broadway success from tiny local theatres (Close the Coalhouse Door and The Pitmen Painters, to name a couple). Best, Frank 55N, 1.5W On 23/01/2013 13:42, Schechner, Sara wrote: Dear Kevin (and other members of the Sundial List), I am leading a Harvard Museums of Science and Culture tour to England at the end of September 2013 on the theme of Time, in conjunction with an exhibition I am curating at Harvard called Time and Time Again: How Science and Culture Shape the Past, Present, and Future.(The exhibition will have more sundials than you can shake a stick at, and I'll write more about it in another letter.) The tour will be in London, Greenwich, Oxford, Bath, Lyme Regis, and Salisbury, and maybe York. I am familiar with the museum collections at Oxford, Greenwich, and the British Museum, but less so of mass /church sundials, Saxon dials, and other historical ones that a coach could stop at en route to somewhere or as part of a tour. I would love to hear your ideas! Sara 42°36'N 71° 22'W West Newton, MA 02465 --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
Re: Sundials worthy of a tour in England - Pics 1 for Bath
Dear SaraNice to hear from you!First idea...Bath - the Grand Pump Room built 1705 - an elegant tea room - with a fabulous Tompion Long Case Clock, complete with EoT cam, and on a ledge outside the nearest window the Tompion sundial with which to set the clock. The Curator has a packaged talk about the Pump Room, Tompion, the clock the sundial - which he gives at breakfast time on the days the clocks change to/for summer time, when he open the clock and re-sets the clock. I am sure he could be pursued to talk to your group if you lunched there.2 more Pics to comeBest regardsKevin--- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
Re: Sundials worthy of a tour in England
Dear Sara, By chance, if you are in Durham for September 2013 you will be able to see the Lindisfarne Gospels, a famous gospel book which will be in the Cathedral on loan from the British Library in London for the month of September. Lending this book has been called the world's number one outside loan. Do look it up on line, it's stunning. Don't miss the cat round the edge of one page, with seven birds inside it. By the way, don't accept all you hear about Bewcastle being the oldest U.K. dial, not while Escomb lives! Joking apart, the runes on which the Bewcastle dial has been dated are totally unreadable and the transcriptions are pretty fanciful. It's pretty certain that both dials are from around 700. If I can help in suggesting an itinerary do please let me know. Kevin is right about Jarrow and Bede and it would be nice for you to go into the church at Pittington as well as seeing the double-hour mass dial there. Newcastle has the dial made by Wigham Richardson for his shipyard. He wrote the appendix in Mrs. Gatty on how to make a sundial. Also there is Dial Cottage, home of George Stephenson, the railway engineer, with his dial over the door, but which was beyond his capacity and was calculated by his son, Robert, aged 13! Best, Frank On 23/01/2013 15:39, Schechner, Sara wrote: Excellent idea! I'll suggest that we head to Durham! Thanks! --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
RE: Sundials worthy of a tour in England
Sara If you are going to go as far north as Durham, then you might as well go a wee bit further and come to Scotland where we have many sundials unique to Scotland ! regards Dennis Sent from my samsung mobile on O2 Schechner, Sara sche...@fas.harvard.edu wrote: Excellent idea! I’ll suggest that we head to Durham! Thanks! From: Frank Evans [mailto:frankev...@zooplankton.co.uk] Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 10:26 AM To: Schechner, Sara Subject: Re: Sundials worthy of a tour in England Dear Sara, You are following the usual visitor route in England, i.e. only calling at the bottom half. There are no Roman dials in England and the two oldest are Anglo-Saxon dials in the north. One, the Anglo-Saxon dial at Escomb, County Durham, (BSS Register 4752) from around 700, is an absolute gem in a gem of an entirely Anglo-Saxon church. In the same county is Durham Cathedral with its noon line (BSS Register 0825) for regulating the church clocks. The cathedral is another knock-out, claimed to be the finest Romanesque building in the world, on a spectacular headland and defended by its own castle. You should consider this, and there are plenty more dials of interest locally including several more Anglo-Saxon ones. Also, of course, this part of the world is stuffed with history, the original home of railways, turbines, electric light and Hadrian's Wall, also Georgian town centres and more castles than the Rhine, not to mention the odd Broadway success from tiny local theatres (Close the Coalhouse Door and The Pitmen Painters, to name a couple). Best, Frank 55N, 1.5W On 23/01/2013 13:42, Schechner, Sara wrote: Dear Kevin (and other members of the Sundial List), I am leading a Harvard Museums of Science and Culture tour to England at the end of September 2013 on the theme of Time, in conjunction with an exhibition I am curating at Harvard called Time and Time Again: How Science and Culture Shape the Past, Present, and Future. (The exhibition will have more sundials than you can shake a stick at, and I’ll write more about it in another letter.) The tour will be in London, Greenwich, Oxford, Bath, Lyme Regis, and Salisbury, and maybe York. I am familiar with the museum collections at Oxford, Greenwich, and the British Museum, but less so of mass /church sundials, Saxon dials, and other historical ones that a coach could stop at en route to somewhere or as part of a tour. I would love to hear your ideas! Sara 42°36'N 71° 22'W West Newton, MA 02465 --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial --- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
