Sundial 7 - Currie Churchyard

Today we visited the NTS garden at Malleny where I had an informative chat with a lady who was trying to get ideas for a vegetable garden on her croft overlooking Skye.  With 5 acres of bracken and rocky terrain she has some hard work ahead of her but she has her vision for the future.

Another person with a vision was Robert Palmer, the schoolmaster of Currie near Edinburgh for 40 years, who in 1836 presented the inhabitants with a beautiful sundial in the churchyard.  Although it is not easy to read this dial now, it is the one that I have found most interesting so far and the only one that I’d never seen before.

Robert Palmer was obviously a very talented and generous man as he also calculated, designed and engraved it in elaborate gothic and cursive script.  It shows the “sun’s place in the ecliptic equation of time” and includes Roman numerals with the hours I to XII twice so has the 24 hours of the day and even marks the 60 minutes in each hour (part of JoppaStrand’s challenge!) and months of the year. By having every hour of the day he was able to indicate the time of noon at 50 places throughout the world including Baghdad, Mecca, Cape of Good Hope, Salamanca, Bermuda, New York and of course London. There is a lot of other information on it but regrettably I have been unable to find a reproduction of the face as it was originally before being defaced by lichen but hope it will be restored to its former glory before long.   I know it's not an attractive blip but more informative so I include part of the face showing the position of the sun at noon in UK.   (best seen in large)