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BSS Conference 2012 Conference Programme
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Friday 15th April
2:00 pm Displays set-up commences 3.00pm Hotel check-in commences 4:00 pm Refreshments 5:30 Bar open 6:30 Dinner
Session Chairman: Frank King
8:00 pm Conference Opening—Frank King 8:10 President’s Address—Chris Daniel
8:20 The Gaocheng Calendrical Observatory—Allan Mills Every culture has the need to keep track of time of day as well as time of year. Dates for religious festivals may also be laid down in advance. Medieval Chinese society laid great emphasis on prophecy and divination, particularly by watching and forecasting the motions of the moon and planets with respect to the ‘fixed’ stars to give ‘auspicious’ days for events of state. In 1276 A.D. Kublai Khan ordered a great calendrical observatory be built according to the plans of his distinguished astronomer Guo Shoujing in a rather remote part of rural China. The paper describes the construction and use of this observatory.
8:50 Modern, free computing tools to help the dial designer—Kevin Karney 'SketchUp' is a free easy-to-use 3-D modelling tool - of interest to the gnomonist since it precisely lights one's modelled scene according the time of day and season. A modelled sundial will show the Equation of Time effect, how a building or tree might get in the way or if one's sundial will actually work. 'NodeBox' is another free offering that provides precise 2-D graphics with .pdf output of any size that can go directly to any architect's office for printing on their large sized printers.
9:10 Trying to follow in Tony Moss’s footsteps—Kevin Karney
The incomparable Tony has made many of his professional secrets available to
the whole gnomonic community. This light-hearted talk charts the blunders
and mishaps when an amateur tries to follow the master …. But finally, both
late and grossly over budget, a sundial is produced of which the author is
proud.
9:30 Displays and Bar
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Saturday 14th April
07:00–08:30 Breakfast & Displays
Session Chairman: Frank King 08:30 The Society’s Future—Discussion Forum Background papers for this session are in your conference pack and to maximise free discussion time there will be just a brief introduction. Please read the papers in advance. All comments and suggestions will be welcome.
Session Chairman: Fred Sawyer 09:15 Two sundials on a Norwegian outfarm-Johan Wikander In former days in Norway, farmers had outfarms up in the nearby mountains. In summertime the young boys and girls stayed in small cottages built on these outfarms with some of the cattle. They mostly then made butter and cheese. On this particular outfarm in the Trondheim region in the middle of Norway, two horizontal sundials are carved on a slab. The sundials have Roman numerals. However, the mid day lines are according to the magnetic needle when the horizontal sundials were carved. In those days ordinary people in our country did not bother about magnetic variation.
The oldest sundial is carved about year 1675, and the youngest one about year 1875.This is according to several observations of magnetic variation which I have found in documents, manuscript maps etc through the years.
09:30 More mirror magic—Chris Lusby Taylor Mirrors, carefully angled, can achieve what a nodus can only dream of. This talk presents the theory and some novel sundials that use mirrors to realise aesthetic designs with unique properties.
10:00 Questions 10:05 Coffee and Displays 10:45 Conference Photograph
Session Chairman: Martin Jenkins 11:05 Excavated Dials—John Davis Sundials which have been unearthed during excavations are an under-researched resource. They can fill in gaps in the history of sundials not covered by dials from other sources. The talk will look at a number of recent examples found both by professional archaeologists and by amateur metal detectorists, looking particularly at developments in medieval England.
11:45 A garden heliochronometer–Martin Hogbin This talk describes the design of what is believed to be a novel type of sundial that is easy to read and set up and which tells the time to within a minute or so. The design and manufacture of a prototype dial using this concept and which visually resembles a standard horizontal is also described. Advantages and disadvantages of the design are discussed along with possible future developments.
12:15 Elliptical sundials, general and craticular—Fred Sawyer This talk will cover a wide range of dials first described in Samuel Foster's 1654 book Elliptical or Azimuthal Horologiography. From analemmatic to equiangular to straight-line to dials with arbitrarily placed gnomons, this book introduced some of the most ingenious sundials of the last 4 centuries. Fred will also cover the 'craticular' form of these dials - something only hinted at by Foster. He will then close by introducing a new variety of polar dial developed by Fred but inspired by Foster's work.
12:55 Questions 13:00 Lunch 14:00 Coach departs promptly for dial tour 18:15 Displays and bar 19:00 Conference Dinner and Awards 20:15 Auction— Auctioneer, Chris Daniel 21:15 Displays and bar |
Sunday 15th April
07:30–08:30 Breakfast & Displays
Session Chairman: Mike Shaw 08:30 The Olympic Sundial—David Brown The design, construction and installation of the sundial in The Great British Garden of The Olympics Park, London will be described, and reference made to some of the technical problems encountered and solved on the way.
08:50 A multi-dial for schools and dialling talk presenters—Tony Moss Arising from an educational thread on the Sundials Mailing List, which illustrated the need for a suitable demonstration instrument for schools, a modified version of the Lindisfarne Multi-Dial seemed appropriate. The design criteria included easy adjustment for northern temperate latitudes, integrated functioning of horizontal, vertical, polar and equatorial faces and low-cost but sturdy construction. This presentation illustrates the development of first prototypes and alternative construction methods.
09:05 See Naples and Dial, an Italian Job—Frank King This is a fast-moving story. A contemporary English diallist works in harness with the Roman poet Virgil (and a number of others) to produce an unlikely analemmatic sundial in a truly exotic setting. There is a mystery courting couple, the brooding presence of Vesuvius, hints of Mafia involvement and a Fred Sawyer style geometry lesson. You will need to pay close attention. Alas, there is a sad ending.
09:45 Questions 09:50 Coffee and Displays [Reminder: Hotel room check out is 12 noon]
Session Chairman: Frank King 10:30 The Al Shatir sundial in Damascus—Roger Bailey The Al Shatir dial at the Great Mosque in Damascus was built in 1371 and it still exists. The dial is the oldest surviving sundial with a polar gnomon. It has two gnomons and five time systems for time from noon, sunrise, sunset, temporal hours, Moslem prayer times and reference lines for prayer times at daybreak and nightfall. I have designed a replica for latitude 39º, Analemma Park, in Virginia, near Washington, DC
11:15 Questions
Andrew Somerville Memorial Lecture 11:20 Traces of History at the Pope’s gnomon—John Heilbron The meridiana traced by Francesco Bianchini in 1703 in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome on commission from Pope Clement XI is an instrument of science, an object of beauty, and a record of foreign policy. This included papal support of the Stuart cause. The man known in Britain as the Old Pretender and in Rome as James III is remembered at appropriate places on or near the meridian line. Other embellishments reflected the greatness of Bianchini’s patron. The line is inscribed in brass and marble on the pavement of a church designed by Michelangelo within the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian. It has an unusual set of jubilee ellipses representing the precession of the equinoxes. It provides for telescopic examination of circumpolar stars as well as for standard noon observations. It lends itself to illustrations, which will accompany the lecture.
12:20 Questions
12:25 AGM & Discussion
13:00 Lunch 14:30 Conference ends 15:00 Displays removed
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Dial Tour—Saturday afternoon 14 April 2012
A Varia of Variform Verticals...!
Three towns ; nine ‘and a bit’ dials! This year’s tour takes us on a round trip of the North Cotswolds to look at just a few of the many vertical dials in this part of Gloucestershire.
We start from the hotel and set off East and North for a pleasant 40 minute drive though beautiful countryside to visit the market town of Moreton in Marsh. There in the centre of the town on the Redesdale (Market) Hall is a Great Decliner, SRN 0933. It declines some 83 degrees East. The Hall was erected in 1887 by the 1st Baron Redesdale, the grandfather of the Mitford sisters.
We then set off North again for a 15 minute drive to that loveliest of Cotswold Villages, Chipping Campden. Amazingly this village has at least 14 dials! However time only permits us to see seven. All of these are on or close to the High Street where our coach will stop. The locations of the dials are indicated by the numerals on the map here. Dial 1, SRN 0752 , on Crosby House, formerly Meadow Cottage, is the first High Street dial on our tour, the date of the house is recorded as 1691.
Dial 2 is two doors along on Green Dragons House and is a 1700 dial. SRN 0753. The gnomon has a curl at the end and it also has a nodus but there’s now no clue why.
Dial 4 is at the Cotswold House Hotel, SRN 0750. Built in 1815 by Richard Miles, a grocer and chandler in a fair way of business, this superb Regency building has featured in a Miss Marple TV series. There, on an outbuilding to the rear, is a delightful dial, We know Richard Miles paid for it, but who made it and who designed it?
Dial 5, SRN 0754, is over Sundial House (Lloyd Loom Interiors) near the Market Hall. The house was remodelled in the 18th Century and the 1647 dial seems to have been similarly treated. The gnomon has been reset in the wrong place so it doesn’t even show anywhere near the right time.
Dial 6, SRN 0751, is on the recently closed Jaffé Neale Bookshop and is dated 1690 . It is canted out from the wall allowing a later time in the afternoon to be shown than the other dials which, owing to the curve of the street, face more or less south-east. Maybe the dial has been brought from elsewhere? This ‘bookshop dial’ was originally said to be used to set the Town Hall clock but you cannot actually see the Town Hall from here as the Market Hall is in the way.
Dial 7, SRN 0608, is on Grevel’s House at the end of the High Street, almost opposite Church Street. William Grevel - a rich London wool merchant—lived in this magnificent house at the end of the 14th Century. It is perhaps the oldest house in the High Street. We don’t know if they had a dial then but the house has one today, dated 1815.
If there’s time left before we must leave, why not have a cup of tea in one of the hotels or cafés on the High Street like the Bantam Tea Rooms or Badger Hall?
Finally ‘T’ on the map marks the locations of the two sets of public toilets in Chipping Campden.
From Chipping Campden we turn for home but if there’s time we shall stop at the village of Bishop’s Cleeve where there is an intriguing vertical dial (SRN 3454) on the church of St Michael’s and All Angels. In fact it is one dial on top of another. The partly hidden dial has both lines and numerals all of which seem correct for the location but the stones seem to have been rearranged. Whatever happened?
The above composite image shows thumbnails of each of the dials we hope to see.
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Auction Catalogue – Saturday evening 14th April 2002
By the time that this catalogue went to press, the following items had been offered for auction at the 2012 BSS Cheltenham Conference. Please note that it’s possible that some of them may not be brought to the meeting by their donors and that other items not currently identified here may yet be brought in on the day. Accordingly this listing should be regarded as preliminary. An up to date Catalogue will be displayed at the meeting.
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© 2011, 2012 Patrick Powers
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