St Mark's, Longwood - sundial

Image: © Stephen Craven Taken: 18 Mar 2019

Not surprisingly, the sundial is on the south side of the church, but predates the present building (it bears the date 1749 and may have come from the previous church on a different site). It has been restored three times according to the church's listing, most recently in 1993 in memory of Cecelia Womersley. An unusual feature is that it bears latitude and longitude co-ordinates, and taken literally the longitude 25deg 35min West would refer to a point in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Ireland. The explanation, thanks to John Foad of the British Sundial Society, is that this is the "Plane's Longitude", the longitude of the location where the dial could be moved to, without rotation, to operate as a horizontal dial (still showing Longwood time, of course). It is a "pretty rare measure".

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