The Corpus: Langford 03

Volume 4: South-East England

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Current Display: Langford 03, Oxfordshire

Overview

Object type: Sundial [1]

Measurements: H. 102 cm (40 in); (W. 58 cm (23 in); D. Built in

Stone type: Inaccessible, but apparently a yellowish limestone, fairly soft and including fossil shells, perhaps ostreids, of 3–5 mm diameter; possibly from Inferior Oolite Group, Middle Jurassic of Cotswolds, or from Corallian Beds, Upper Jurassic, from east of Oxford

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ill. 296

Corpus volume reference: Vol 4 p. 214

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Present Location

Built into the median pilaster of the south external face of the tower at first floor level

Evidence for Discovery

See Langford no. 1.

Church Dedication

St Matthew

Present Condition

Heavily weathered

Description

On the lower edge of the trapezoidal panel, which is widest at the top, stands a pair of figures. Each is clad in a knee-length garment and a cloak falling to mid-calf level. Their feet are out-turned, and the legs bent to the right. The figures look upwards and inwards, having their arms bent and raised to grasp the heavily-damaged, narrow, plain raised edge of a semicircular dial whose horizontal edge is co-terminus with the upper edge of the panel. The lines of calibration are lost.

Discussion

It is difficult to decide if this piece is in situ or not. It is placed extremely high up to be read with ease, but could, nevertheless, be read. The figures holding the dial find their best parallels in Anglo-Saxon art of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, for example, in the Presentation scene in the Foundation Charter of the New Minster, dated to after 966 (Temple 1976, no. 48, ills. 155–6), and the illustrations of the Labours of the Months in BL MS Cotton Tiberius B. V, dated to the second quarter of the eleventh century (ibid., no. 87, ills. 273–4). The architectural features of the tower, in contrast, suggest a later date for its construction. Soffit shafts and rolls which are employed abundantly on the belfry stage were only introduced as late as the second quarter of the eleventh century on the continent (Bony 1967, 75), and their appearance in England before the Conquest would be precocious. The most likely conclusion is that the sundial came originally from an earlier fabric, and has been reused in its present location.

Date

Eleventh century

References

( --- ) 1886, 13 - 14, pl. C; ( --- ) 1899, 52; Gatty 1900, 72 - 3, fig. on 72; Clapham 1930, 138; Cottrill 1931, appendix; Salzman 1939, 367, 371, pl. xxixf; Zinner 1939, 8, 12, abb. 7; Rice 1952, 152; Quirk 1961, 31; Fisher 1962, 229; Taylor 1962b, 19; MacKay 1963, 84, 93; Zinner 1964, iv, 115; Taylor and Taylor 1965 - 78, i, 369 - 70, fig. 167; Taylor and Taylor 1966, 22 - 3, 50, fig. 10; Zarnecki 1966, 91, pl. V; Gem 1973, ii, 501, 503; Sherwood and Pevsner 1974, 348, 681; Tweddle 1986b, i, 84, 175 - 7, ii, 399 - 400, iii, pl. 56b

D.T.

Endnotes