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Description
Close up of the sundial at the top of the western jamb of the middle window on the south side of the chancel. It is recorded on the Corpus of Anglo Saxon Stone Sculpture as Isel 05, 'presumed to be of pre-Conquest date'.
The sign in the south porch reads: "The purpose of this dial in not known. It could not have been a sundial since a dial on 24 equal divisions is effective only at the north and south poles. A possible use (with a moveable pointer?) could have been to indicate which canonical hours had to be read on a particular day".
Guy Points, in his Cumbria Gazetteer, page 4, says this is the only Anglo-Saxon sundial incorporated into the fabric of the church (the Corpus names two). He adds "The central hle for the missing gnomon is easy to identify with 24 (weathered) incised lines radiating at 360 degrees from it, dividing the sundial into 12 day and 12 night segments in the Roman fashion, rather than the 4 day and 4 night segments preferred by the Anglo Saxons".
The sign in the south porch reads: "The purpose of this dial in not known. It could not have been a sundial since a dial on 24 equal divisions is effective only at the north and south poles. A possible use (with a moveable pointer?) could have been to indicate which canonical hours had to be read on a particular day".
Guy Points, in his Cumbria Gazetteer, page 4, says this is the only Anglo-Saxon sundial incorporated into the fabric of the church (the Corpus names two). He adds "The central hle for the missing gnomon is easy to identify with 24 (weathered) incised lines radiating at 360 degrees from it, dividing the sundial into 12 day and 12 night segments in the Roman fashion, rather than the 4 day and 4 night segments preferred by the Anglo Saxons".
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