Stock No.

Exhibit No.29

Dial

The dial signed Tho Tompion London and constructed for latitude 50° 54’ N. The heavy cast-bronze gnomon decorated with finely engraved scrollwork, 77 inches (180 mm) high and riveted to the square cast-bronze dial plate beneath. The plate itself very finely engraved with scroll and strapwork spandrels to the corners and an hour-scale reading to one-minute, with equation tables within, and the following instructions above the gnomon for setting the time:

Set the watch so much faster or slower
than the time by the Sun, according
to the Table for the y day of the month when you
set it; and if the watch go true , the difference
of it from the Sun any day afterward will be
the same with the Table

The dial reads from the outside and, when positioned correctly, North to South. The hour scale with decorative curl-scroll finished ends, has internal rings divided for half-quarters as well as the quarters, the scale centre with Roman hours and decorative fleur-de-lys half-hour markers between and laid out clockwise; from IIII to XII for the morning on the West side and; XII to VIII for the afternoon on the East side. The scale’s outer division ring graduated to one-minute and marked with Arabic numerals every 10 minutes. The centre engraved with an equation of time scale, showing adjustment from true-solar to mean-solar time, in minutes and seconds, every two days of the year; from January to June on one side of the gnomon and; July to December on the other. Originally fixed to a stone pedestal using the four vacant holes in the spandrel corners.

Provenance

Probably commissioned by Sir Thomas Pelham, 4th Bt, later 1st Lord Pelham of Laughton (1653-1712) for Halland House at latitude 50° 54’ North, thence by descent, with his two Tompion clocks (no.284 and no.545), to his son;
The 2nd Lord Pelham of Laughton, later Marquess of Clare and 4th Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne (1693-1768), twice serving as Prime Minister, the dial remaining at Halland House, thence by descent to his cousin;
Lord Pelham of Stanmer, later 1st Earl of Chichester (1728-1805) who pulled down Halland House and moved the sundial to Stanmer, with the Tompion clocks, no.284 and no.545, by descent until; 19th century, probably given to a servant on the Chichester Estates at Falmer, thence by descent until sold by Sotheby’s, 30 October 2002, lot 93 for £50,636;

John C Taylor Collection, inventory no.109

Literature

Evans, Thomas Tompion at the Dial and Three Crowns, 2006, listed p.108;
British Sundial Society Bulletin, vol. 22 (ii), Sept. 2010,
Maciek Lose, ‘An unrecorded Silesian Sundial by John Rowley’, p. 40-5, fig, 10;
Evans, Carter & Wright, Thomas Tompion 300 Years, 2013, listed p.634

Dimensions

12 inches (305 mm) square