Greetings, fellow dialists,
Can anyone please help with these two problems of conservation:
The first concerns a dial dated 1700 on a house in Corbridge,
Northumberland, England. It is a small stone dial with an iron gnomon,
mounted on a wall. There is what appears to be a twin of this dial on
Corbridge parish church a short distance away, dated 1694. The church
dial has recently been repainted with modern black paint for the dial
plate and some sort of false gold for the inscribed numbers and for the
gnomon. It does not look very good.
The 1700 dial, which is on a private house, has also been
painted, in white, but long ago. The owner is loath to use any modern
materials on it without taking advice, having had earlier bad
experiences of so-called conservation. Is someone able to say what
type of paint might be suitable for this previously painted stone, and
also what sort of covering, if any, the iron gnomon might benefit from?
Should the old paint be stripped off, and how?
The second dial is very different. It is on the parish church
at Dalton-le-Dale, south of Sunderland, in County Durham. It is in
almost the last throes of disintegration. It would hardly be worth
attention except that I am convinced that, although mounted on a
thirteenth century wall the dial is from the eighth century. If this is
so then it must rank with Escomb and Bewcastle as among the very
earliest post-Roman dials in the country. Now I am enquiring whether
its further deterioration should be stopped and whether there is any
approved way in which this can be done? Or should we just try to get a
cast of the dial as it stands and leave the rest to the weather? If the
latter course, where can we get advice on how to proceed? I have no
experience of taking casts.
The dial is set over the porch ridge in a nave wall dated by Pevsner as
"early thirteenth century", so it has clearly been moved at some time.
The dial plate is in the form of a semicircle, cut in relief, and
estimated at 55 cm diameter. Above the semicircle the stone is much
eroded and fragmented, but there may at one time have been relief
ornamentation here in the style of Escomb. Surrounding the semicircular
dial plate there is further very badly eroded relief work but careful
examination reveals it to be the remains of a double stranded rope
twist, again in the style of Escomb. There appear to be five tide
lines, the sunrise, noon and sunset lines being clear, the 45 degree
lines faint.
--
Frank Evans
