CHAPTER IX

PEDESTALS AND GNOMONS
" A well-built marble pyramid doth stand
By which spectators know the time o' the day From beams reflecting of the solar ray ; The basis with ascending steps is graced."
— The Humours of Co-vent Garden,
"The style is of iron, time is golden.
It passes by like a shadow and returns not."
— Translation of Italian Sun-dial Motto.
MONG materials for the making of dial pedestals, " many are called, but few are chosen." There are many other as suitable materials as wood and common gran- ite. White marble is ever good in a garden when of moderate bulk, and of limit also in the number of pieces shown. As the first qualification is conformed to in a sun-dial, we need only add that white marble is ever good for a dial pedestal if of careful and classic design. The colored marbles of many lands afford a wonderful choice; the least eccentric of these make the finest pedestals, nor should varied marbles be seen in one pedestal,
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unless of well-studied effect and for special purpose. There is ample color in the garden without adding bizarre effects in colored marble. There are charm- ing Mexican marbles, not the onyx of upholsterers' choice, but red shaded marbles of wonderful veining. Many of our states have individual granites. The exquisite Spanish pink tint of natural alabaster is beau- tiful ; but I fear that stone is too frail for out-door exposure in our climate. An exqui- site sun-dial pillar could be cut from the richly tinted cream - colored sandstone of Ottawa, which is used to such effect in the magnificent Houses of Parliament in Ottawa. The beauti- ful warm red Potsdam and Ohio freestone which forms the adorn- ment of these houses is a glorious stone for a sun-dial ; it is an allied tint to the natural alabaster. Those who have seen the perfect towers and buttresses and pinnacles of the Government Houses shining in the true golden light of sunset know that heaven and earth lie very close
Simple Dial in a Worcester Garden.
2o8 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
together at such hours. With a background of greenery, and a choice close setting of dwarf Azalias around the pedestal, chosen with care, in precisely
true sandstone and freestone tints a bit accented, these would in the blos- soming give a color study of great won- der and beauty. And I should like to see this sun-dial in winter glowing in buff and sal- mon and terra-cotta lines, like a great tinted flower, against its ever- green background. The ceramic art offers pedestals for sun-dials. I have seen them of terra- cotta which were satisfactory, though many are too or-
Terra-cotta Pillar. .
nate. A very good
one, made by Messrs. F. Barker & Son, London, is on this page. They can be made of pottery, both pedestal and dial-face, and several such have been made in our better potteries, with garden seats of cor- responding design. Mr. H. R. Mitchell of Haddon-
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field, New Jersey, makes a very good blue and gray stoneware dial-face. I have also seen Chinese vases and garden seats transformed into dial-pillars, but they have in general rather a make-shift air. A pretty one at Floral Park is shown on one page of this book.
Of course a dial may be set upon a wooden post thrust in the ground, but that forms a pedestal of but shaky position ; a sawed off tree-stump is far better; for the dial-face must be exactly horizontal to be of use. A properly set dial is built upon a firm foundation — preferably of brick laid below the frost-line- - and the dial-face should be set by spirit- level. The smoothing off of a level face on the upper side of a boulder gives a substantial plane for the dial to be fastened to ; and if the boulder is shaped right, it is a very good dial foundation.
"All clean and bare the stones look now, some light, some dark. As year by year goes by, lichens will slowly dot And drape them in soft tints ; beside them shrubs will grow, — The barberry and sweet wild rose ; its shiny leaves The ivy climbing o'er it will display ; The clematis its silver floss."
A column laid up of cobble stones in mortar offers a substantial and permanent plane also ; and if a few lightly clinging creepers be trained over it, or rarely the closely clinging Japanese Ivy, it can be made very effective. In all these dial pedestals the great striving should be to look and to be firm without being clumsy. One of good effect is shown on page 210. It is in the grounds of Mr. Henry T. Coates' residence at Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Another on a mound of stones is shown on page 211. This is at
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Sun-dial and Residence of Henry T. Coates, Esq., Berwyn,
Pennsylvania.
the residence of Mr. H. R. Mitchell, at Haddon- field, New Jersey.
I would never, however, when the dial-pillar is fine of design, plant any close-growing creeper that would hide its beauty ; above all, the Japanese Ivy, which is the English sparrow of flowers. Where it is made welcome, other creepers are crowded out.
Sometimes an absolutely plain shaft gives great dignity to a sun-dial. Such simple pedestals seem particularly fitting for country churchyards and burial- places ; nor are they ill-suited to the old-time flower- garden, when house and fences are of plain lines.
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In the Friends' burying-ground, Green and Coulter streets, Germantown, Philadelphia, is a brass dial-face fixed on one such square plain pedestal of gray gran- ite. See facing page 202. The gnomon is set on the
Sun-dial at Haddonfield, New Jersey, in Garden of H. R. Mitchell, Esq.
centre of a metal face engraved with an eight-pointed star, the points indicating the different points of the compass. The outer circle has the hours divided to minutes, and inside that is a table with the correc-
212 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
tions for reducing the sun time to mean time for each day of the year. This finely calculated and engraved dial was made by W. & S. Jones, No. 30 Holborn Street, London, but has no date. The assigned date is 1778. On a brass plate fastened to the stone is engraved the noble text : " Our days are as a shadow and there is none abiding" — my favorite motto of all sun-dial legends.
The sun-dial on page 213 has a pretty story. It stands in the garden at Huntercombe Manor, Maidenhead, England, — the garden of E. V. B., the Hon. Mrs. Boyle, author of A Garden of Pleas- ure^ Seven Gardens and a Palace^ and Sylvana s Letters to an Unknown Friend. Of all modern writers on the garden now living, Sylvana has to me the truest insight into the spirit of a flower, the purest enjoy- ment of flower life, the happiest manner of telling of her insight and her enjoyment. Every page of her books is a delight to read and I know that her letters were positively written to me. In one she tells the story of this sun-dial : —
u I send you a likeness of the sun-dial, and here is the story of it, if you care to know. In one sense the sun-dial is old, and in another sense it is quite new. It would do
to describe it either way. Years ago at M I knew
a stone-mason's yard where old stone might be picked up. Here in those days I could often find choice old tomb- stones and bits of church architecture and old London Bridge parapets, stone balls, etc. My last bargain in the stone-yard was four corners of a tomb of the sort common a hundred or more years ago. For fifteen years I doubted what to do with them, till suddenly one summer day a sun-
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dial was decided. The difficulties of arranging it were great, and the work rilled up at least two happy weeks. Three old carved stone tablets with lines in alto relievo were made to grace the sun-dial's head. The lines walk with stately step from the sun rising southwards towards
Sun-dial made from Old Tomb, Huntercombe Manor, Maidenhead, England.
the north. The well-weathered marble brackets on which the gnomon rests had lain in patience under the laurels for many a year till Time brought round an hour and a place for them. And then came the fulfilment of the whole, the motto of a famous architect given to me, and engraved around the upper step, Lux et umbra vidssim, sed semper amor. This motto, published in my Garden of Pleas- ure, has been since translated into English and printed in
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someone else's garden book. I wish you could see the white lily planted two autumns ago just under the lowest step. The slender shaft of its stalk carries now for the first time three or four buds, and when the sun shines upon it a delicate half-transparent shadow slants across the stone. For some reason known to itself this lily grows so small that it is like no mortal lily. Blue Gentian in May sets off the stone edging between it and the turf; and a plant of yellow Clematis flings itself in a light embrace around the central column or pedestal. The flower of it I have never seen. I only know its handsome fluffy seed."
I have given this account of Sylvana's sun-dial at length, not only on account of its absolute charm of diction, but on account of the valuable sugges- tions it gives for the mounting of sun-dials. What infinite pleasure she has had in comparison to the owner of the costly made-to-order pedestal, in this " home-made " pedestal. Of course it is not home- made either, for the carving is fine and has seen good days ere it came to its better days in the manor garden ; but the putting together of the different parts necessitated much thought, and brought infinite gratification, like everything else over which we work long and make a success. I know, were it mine, I should never glance at this sun-dial without a thrill of delight over my handi- work. It is well to use old bits of marble and stonework, or old pillars and pedestals of turned wood, if one can find them of good simple shape. Charles Dickens used a pillar of the balustrade of old Rochester Bridge as a pedestal for his sun-dial at Gadshill. This dial and pillar were recently sold
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in London for fifty pounds. The early days of the dial are told in an inscription cut upon it. A clergy- man of Suffolk, England, has a dial in his vicarage garden at Pakenham set on a part of the balustrade of London Bridge. The bridge was taken down in 1 832.
I have known twice of using as a dial pedestal the stone roller of a worn garden or lawn roller of the old-fashioned type. Set on end firmly into the ground, and with a well-designed brass dial-face covering the other end, it was a very satisfactory pillar, and carried with it that pleasant sense of a decorous and not use- less end of the days for a faithful old servant, albeit of senseless stone, which one feels also for a worn old mill-stone turned into a doorstep ; for a well-curb made into a flower-stand ; or for an old Dutch wind- mill transformed to a house for garden tools.
The richest pedestals are, of course, those of
Carved figures, Suited The Moor' Enfield Old Park,
only to very rich and
pretentious gardens. Their cost, whether of marble, stone, metal, or even wood, would prevent their ap- pearance anywhere save in such gardens. A kneeling figure supporting a dial on the head was popular, see
2i 6 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
page 215. These were sometimes cast in lead. One which stood in the garden of Clement's Inn, and is now in the gardens of the Inner TempJe on the Thames embankment, is a negro figure and has been
known as "' The Moor." It is said that there were in the eighteenth cen- tury a number of " stat- uaries," lead-casters, whose works were be- tween Piccadilly, Park Lane, and Devonshire House; one of these men, John van Nost, made this " Moor" his favorite design.
At Belton House, near Grantham, there is a worn dial in Earl Brownlow's garden, sup- ported by two figures, Old Time and Cupid. This dial, with its quaintly grotesque figures, is shown on page 198. A unique dial is the famous old Turk's Head given on another page. At Windsor, near the Star " Build- ing," stands a sun-dial with a highly carved mar- ble pedestal, which is said to have been the work of that man of infinite genius, Grinling Gibbons. The carving is in high relief, and the Star and Garter is engraved on the dial-face with the motto, Honi soil qui mal y pense. Henricus Wynne ^ Londinii, fecit.
Sun-dial at Hampton Court.
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In 1895 a beautiful dial was designed and set up by Messrs. Brewill and Baily at Whatton House near Loughborough. It is here shown. A moulded
Sun-dial at Whatton House, near Loughborough.
circular top is carried by four draped figures of the Muses, --Clio, Euterpe, Erata, and Urania. This group resembles the dial in The Dane John at Canterbury. The exact size of figures for a sun-
2i 8 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
dial must be guided by the extent of the garden. I do not like colossal figures even in lead, still less do I like to see displayed
" A little goddikin
No bigger than a skittle pin,"
as Cotton wrote. On page 414 is shown the dial at Wroxton Abbey, Oxfordshire, described by Mr. Blomfield in his Formal Garden as " a moulded cir- cular top carried by four draped female figures, who stand on a square pedestal, the angles of which are decorated with rams' heads and swags of fruits and flowers." Perhaps the camera may be held at fault, but certainly these "Four Seasons" seem dumpy little goddikinesses.
An appropriate pedestal for a substantial dial in a busy town is standing in the enclosure of the gas- works, northeast corner of Twenty-third and Market streets, Philadelphia. It was originally erected by the Market Street Bridge Company, at the western ap- proach of the bridge, as a memorial to those engaged in the construction of the bridge. Later the obelisk was removed to its present position. It is about twelve feet in height, cut clean and true from gray sandstone, and consists of a shaft standing on two steps, supporting a square block of stone, on the four sides of which are cut dials facing the cardinal points of the compass. The whole is surmounted by an urn carved with a burning flame. On the four sides of the obelisk are carved long inscriptions giving a history of the construction, quantities of masonry, etc., used in building the bridge.
Sun-dial and Dial-face at Harlestone House, Northamptonshire.
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Facing page 218 is the sun-dial at Harlestone House, Northamptonshire, the residence of the Duchess of Grafton, and a reproduction of a rub- bing from the dial-face. It stands on the lawn at the south front of the house, and bears the name and date, Frederic Spencer, August, 1842. Maker,