Greetings fellow dialists, First I take and accept the point of Andrew James. Mea culpa. Now to the solution of the compass point problem. Fortunately Tony Moss has just visited me and agreed it. In one of the four photos I took I have now been able to see two small holes drilled in the gnomon. These are clearly for the reception of a removable vertical rod arising over the centre point. Thus the shadow of this rod would give the sun's bearing plus 16 points (180 degrees) Moreover, by listing the reciprocal the sun's actual bearing is recorded directly. And one eighth of a point is only about 1.4 degrees so considerable accuracy is possible.
By the way, old nautical tables offered trigonometric solutions in (usually 1/4) points, e.g. with traverse tables which are solutions of right angled triangles and used in plane sailing. Frank 55N 1W -- Frank Evans -
