The Sundials of St Margaret's Church Westminster
St Margaret's Church Westminster is located adjacent to Westminster Abbey in London. For years it displayed an 18th Century clock on its North face However, this failed and it was removed from the tower in the 1970s. Sometime later Christopher Daniel MBE was commissioned to install four giant sundials one on each face of the square tower with the North facing dial taking the place of the original clock. The sundials were the gift of Sir Geoffrey de Freitas. A plaque in the North porch of the church records the gift. That plaque reads:
The sundials on the tower commemorate the Ecumenical Service held here on 16 November 1974 for the 20th annual session of the North Atlantic Assembly. They were given by the Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey de Freitas KCMG, President of the Assembly 1976-1978. Members of the Parliaments of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were present at the service which was conducted by the Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, assisted by clergy from the member countries of NATO. "From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord's name is to be praised" Psalm 113.v.3 On the exterior of the tower is a blue plate giving time corrections, with the names of the makers. They were designed by Christopher Daniel in collaboration with Edwin Russell. They were made by Oliver Gero of Messrs Brookbrae Ltd. and are of stainless steel painted blue. They were completed in 1982.
Recently some photographs were discovered in Christopher's personal archive showing a few aspects of their construction and installation - none of which has been made public before as far as is known. SunInfo is delighted to have Christopher's permission to show these here.
One of the dials contains the designer's and makers' names. These are not easily
(or at all!) visible from the ground or even in the included shot above because
they are located on the inside edge of the South dial. A close up taken at
the time of installation shows these clearly at the lower left. The
sundials' motto was placed on the North face dial and read: Let the
People Praise Thee, O God.
But the St Margaret's saga does not end there! The
18th Century clock which had been removed from the tower in the 1980s has itself
now been re-installed on the tower, after its discovery in the early 2000s lying
unrecorded in one of the Abbey’s yards. It has now been carefully restored and
put back into its original location on the North face.
Whilst the tower was covered in scaffolding during these works, it was also
decided to renovate the other three sundials.
There had been some debate about how to restore the old clockface, not least the
question of what colour it should now be. Restoration work on the tower had
naturally shown up many layers of paint on the stone where the clock used to be,
but in the end it was decided to go with a blue and gold design that is similar
to how it looked in Tudor times and which of course, matches the remaining dials
which have themselves also been repainted.. Ptolemy Dean Architects were
ressponsible for these works.
These works were finally completed in October 2020 and, courtesy of Google Streetview, we are now able to see a snapshot of the finished tower as it was in 2021.
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