How To Read A Garden Sundial

Sundials are a type of shadow clock that tracks the passage of time using the position of the sun and shadows. There are a few different types of sundials, from armillary spheres and vertical sundials to simpler horizontal sundials. The most unique is perhaps the Obelisk, favoured by the ancient Egyptians, a monumental four-sided pillar. Whichever sundial you choose, each tracks time uniquely.

How does a sundial work?

In its simplest form, a sundial consists of a flat surface, known as the dial plate, marked with hour lines and a raised arm or stick called the gnomon, which casts a shadow across the dial as the sun moves across the sky.

All sundials must be positioned in direct sunlight to work. As the sun travels around the Earth’s axis, the shadow created by the gnomon falls on the hour lines etched into the dial plate, or an hour band on an Armillary Sphere, which are like the hands on a clock. This shadow line moves depending on the time of year and the time of day.

On a standard David Harber Armillary Sphere, hour marks are set at 15-degree increments. A sundial in the Northern Hemisphere will have a gnomon pointing north, and you read the dial north-south. This is reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.

As well as time, sundials mark the autumn and summer equinoxes, and the summer and winter solstices.

How to read the time on a sundial

To work as accurate timepieces for the local time at their specific location, sundials are made using degrees of longitude and latitude. To read these historic instruments, you first need to understand the equation of time.

Unlike mechanical clocks, Sundials do not tell Mean Time or clock time, but Local Apparent Time or apparent solar time. If you live in the UK and your time zone is Greenwich Mean Time, for each degree west of the Greenwich meridian, the sun is four minutes slow, and for each degree east, it’s four minutes fast. At David Harber, we calibrate our sundials to allow for this.

To convert the Local Apparent Time indicated by the shadow on the dial to Greenwich Mean Time, if you’re in the UK, you need the graph below. Find the relevant month of the year on the horizontal axis, then add or subtract the number of minutes indicated on the graph from the time shown on the dial to reveal GMT.

You will need to add one hour in the summer to account for British Summer Time (BST) or daylight saving time (DST). If your dial is set to daylight saving time, you will need to subtract an hour in the winter.

Outside the UK, these settings will be calculated by the most appropriate time zone according to your location. In the southern hemisphere, the settings are the same but flipped, and sundials are read in reverse.

How accurate is a sundial?

A sundial is accurate to solar time or Local Apparent Time rather than Mean Time or clock time. For a sundial to be truly precise, the piece needs to be made to the longitude and latitude of its intended location.

What direction is 12 on a sundial?

The direction of 12, or the noon line, on the hour band in the Northern Hemisphere always points north-south, but its position on the hour line will change according to your exact location. In the UK, for dials set to GMT, the closer the sundial placement is to the Greenwich Meridian, the more central the 12 will sit on the hour band.

How do you adjust a sundial for accurate timekeeping?

Sundials are not as accurate as modern clocks; time ranges can be as far as 16 minutes from the exact time. Clock and solar time are perfectly aligned just four times a year.

David Harber sundials are as precise as a sundial can be because we customise every design to your location. This means you do not need to adjust your sundial during the year, but you will need to account for daylight saving.

For any sundial to work as accurately as possible, you need a sunny site, or a south-facing wall for a vertical dial.

How can a sundial be used to tell time at night?

Sundials work by tracking the sun around the Earth’s orbit and casting shadows. At night, it’s impossible to cast a shadow using sunlight. However, moon dials, such as our Globe Dial, tell the time on the night of the full moon, and on three or four nights before and after as the moon waxes and wanes. As well as extending its time-telling gifts, the romance of telling the time in a moon-lit garden creates an atmosphere of privacy and serenity.

Bewitched by the magic of these incredible timepieces? Read A History Of Sundials: How Shadow Clocks Mark The Passage Of Time to find out more.