Sundials (3)

Don't recognise this? No, nor did I. That's because this one, despite being one of the oldest (perhaps the oldest) locally, is in the courtyard of Morden College and most of us never get to see it. It was sent to me some time ago (thank you, Anon) and I'm afraid it's taken me this long to get round to it...

I know virtually nothing about the architecture of Morden College. The frankly tedious volume The History of Morden College, which I thought would end all my woes when I found it but is actually most useful as a cure for insomnia, says very little indeed about the building - more about the trust itself. Sadly it's almost all I have on the subject and, although the far more readable Neil Rhind touches on it a bit, he refers readers back to The History.., which looks as though it was being written at the same time as his own Blackheath Village & Environs (2). I daresay he was being polite, leaving it to their own historian, but I wish he hadn't been.

Admittedly the early political history of the college is fascinating (and if wagging tongues are correct, later political history too...) though perhaps not for a day dedicated to sundials.

And here is today's Sundial in context - on the South side of the quadrangle- sensibly set up to get the most hours of sun, though it doesn't look as though it was part of the original plan. Apparently, although it says 1695, it was actually erected 30 years later in 1725 "for keeping the clock which often goes wrong."

It seems generally agreed today that Sir Christopher Wren didn't build the place (as some tried to claim over the years...) - it was more likely his master mason for St Paul's Cathedral, Edward Strong, but I can guarantee he didn't create the sundial as he died a year before it was made. Whoever did make it had an eye for cute.

It's a pretty little thing - all curly and Dutch-looking (a very popular style then) and handily set up on a chimney, though looking at the damage on the face, it could do with a spruce-up. The little golden sun looks particularly battered.

And here is, presumably, the clock that was always going wrong. It looks like it would have been part of the original building, but I can't be sure.

1725 makes it five years before John Harrison would have created his first marine clock, so accuracy was a real problem - and a red-hot issue across the heath at Greenwich. All kinds of people were coming up with timekeeping inventions, hoping theirs was the most accurate to win the prize offered by the King.

The local dogs must have been delighted that the guys at Morden College decided to go with a sundial when they were getting a timepiece rather than that nutty idea some bright spark had of poking one dog at a certain time to see if the other one yelped.

Sundials have their drawbacks - not least the whole cloudy-day bit, but given what was on offer at the time, it seems a good choice. And even when it isn't usable, it looks good.

Has anyone noticed if they ever open Morden College to the public, like Trinity Hospital does? Open House Day? Charity fetes? Guided Walks?

Sundials (2)

We've not had a sundial for a while, so today, I bring you some of Greenwich's newest (though we don't really seem to have any really old ones - publicly-viewed, at least, maybe there are some private ones someone can tell me about...) solar clocks.

These are on the new block at Trinity Hospital, right at the back of the garden, which, considering what new blocks of almshouses normally look like these days, they haven't made a bad fist at. Modern, but at least with some kind of nod to the style of the original. That end of the garden was really only where they had the compost bins, so they didn't lose much in the way of horticultural delights. And I'm told that the old block, despite its being extremely pretty, was very cramped, cold and dark, not to mention damp. I bet there's been a stampede for the new wing by the '21 retired gentlemen..'

I even like the plaque on the side that reminds us that the place is funded by the Mercers' Company in the City. I don't know how many mercers are still in the City these days (I have a jewellery-making friend who got quite excited to be invited to a dinner held by the Goldsmiths Company, thinking they'd meet loads of like-minded metal workers, and there were only about two there - the rest were bankers) but the main thing is that they're obviously still pretty wealthy and looking after sundry elderly people around Britain.

The only thing I find rather sad is that I never once saw then delightful little arched door that opens from the Thames entrance into the ancient courtyard of the historic block open this year. It just gathered last year's Autumn leaves and made the place look very neglected. Maybe I was just there at the wrong time, but I miss that little secret view.

But back to the sundials. The first looks pretty straightforward - a simple stick-with-a-gold-bobble that points to Roman numerals. I confess I've never actually seen the sun shine on it there - it's a bit of a dark road, but I'm sure there are times when it's sunny there - and besides we don't really need sundials to tell us the time any more. They're pretty and that's all I care about.

The second is more of a puzzle to a simple Phantom. The signs of the zodiac on lines which appear to lead to each symbol's 'opposite' sign, and a little gnomon which is so short it doesn't look as though it could cast a shadow on anything unless the light source was immediately above it. I haven't got much of a clue on this. A moon clock or something? Maybe someone who speaks Latin can translate the motto for me?

Whatever. It's a lovely thing - and hooray for lovely things still being used to decorate modern buildings. I'll like it even more if someone can tell me what it all means...

Greenwich Sundials (1)

Thames Path, Greenwich Peninsula

First in a new series today, folks. I've been thinking recently that Greenwich, being the 'the home of time,' 'where time begins,' 'where days begin and end' etc. etc., has an enormous amount of sundials, old and new.

In fact they seem to fall into two categories - very old and very new - and there has been a positive rash of them in recent years - it seems that if we're going to have a new piece of public art it just has to be a sundial. They are strangely homogeneous, too.

I've chosen this one, just by the Eco Park at the Peninsula, to start the series with because it's typical of the recent 'corporate' variety of Art. It's not utterly horrible - just not very inspiring.

A solid, vandal-proof black brick piece (complete with a slightly worrying white stain these days) with solid metal gnomons and solid metal face plates, it's a polar sundial (as many of them seem to be these days.) It comes complete with inscriptions where all the good deed-doers who had anything to do with the placing of the item congratulate themselves - the Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers, Master Sir Idris Pearce, CBE, Stockbuilding Products Ltd, The Corps of Royal Engineers, English Partnerships - oh, and Nick Raynsford, who unveiled it. It says little else. I'm sure it never occurred to these good people that it might seem to some to look suspiciously like a fancy advert...

Would I rather it were not there? Of course not. I like art being in the community. But does it have to be so created-by-committee? Oh, yes, I know that Piers Nicholson is credited as having 'designed' it, but I can't believe that he thought this was cutting-edge. He must have been leaned on - and with that many chiefs I can't imagine that one lone Indian had much say in the final outcome of the piece. I'd love to see the first draft...

I see fewer and fewer examples of artists being given commissions in this country and being allowed to just get on with it. That's what happens when art is funded by business and corporations. Everyone wants their pound of flesh and free expression is a faded 1970s memory.

Blimey. Where did all that come from? I hadn't intended to talk about art funding today. Better go and have a nice cup of tea and a sit down...