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Object type: Sundial
Measurements: H. 25 cm (9.8 in); W. 25 cm (9.8 in); D. 9 cm (3.5 in)
Stone type: Very pale orange (10YR 8/2) clast-supported, micritic oolite, with ooliths ranging from 0.3 to 0.6 mm, but mostly in the range 0.4 to 0.5 mm, with one or two up to 1.0 mm; most ooliths have weathered or fallen out to give an 'aero-chocolate' texture. The ooliths form about 80% of the stone. Shell fragments, which form about 1% of the stone, are up to 2 mm across. Cleeve Cloud Member, Birdlip Limestone Formation, Inferior Oolite Group, Jurassic.
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 494-5
Corpus volume reference: Vol 10 p. 274-5
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None. Perhaps discovered during the restoration of 1898–9 (Verey and Brooks 1999, 635–6).
Square sundial. The dial has a wide, plain border that varies in width from 3.3 cm to 2.5 cm (1.3 to 1 in). The inside edge of the border is marked by an incised line. The dial itself is divided into four by incised lines, with the three principal divisions carrying cross-bars. There are a further five incised dials still in situ on the south side of the church.
Appendix D item (sundials presumed to be of pre-Conquest date).
The four segments of this dial presumably equate to the 3-hour tides into which the Anglo-Saxons divided the day (Green 1928, 489–516), and the dial is, therefore, almost certainly pre-Conquest in date. Although rather crudely carved, the three principal division markers on the Stowell dial are similar to other late Anglo-Saxon dials from Somerset and Hampshire (see Saintbury 2 discussion, p. 274).
