Pics and text by Shane Sody
"Serene I stand amidst the flowers, to tell the passage of the hours."
Sundials or shadow clocks have been around for 3,500 years, since the time of ancient Egypt and Babylon.
In your Adelaide Park Lands, there are three locations where you can use one of these ancient devices to tell the approximate time, provided that the sun is shining!
The three Adelaide Park Lands sundials, from left: in Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (Park 14); Pennington Gardens West / Tarntanya Wama (Park 26); and in Veale Gardens, Veale Park/ Walyu Yarta (Park 21).
Sundials in public gardens are small monuments to a very old human habit: marking daily life by the arc of the Sun. Your Adelaide Park Lands host three sundials that do more than track solar time — they anchor memory, design and place.
Each of the three was placed in a different Park, in a different era and for different reasons, but today each of the three could be considered as fulfilling scientific, decorative and civic purposes.
1. Veale Gardens
Nestled in the formality of Veale Gardens in Veale Park / Walyu Yarta (Park 21) is a white-marble sundial presented to the City of Adelaide as a memorial.
Although it’s dated “1905” it was placed here in 1964, having been relocated from what was, at the time, the Symons family estate (“Manoah” at Upper Sturt).
There are Greek words around the top of the sundial pedestal. Translated, the phrase means: “The Night Cometh”.
A plaque at the base of the sundial identifies it as memorial to lawyer and politician Sir Josiah Henry Symon (1846-1934). He was Attorney-General of SA in the 1880s, one of those most responsible for achieving Federation in 1901, and an inaugural Senator for SA in the first Federal Parliament.
Top: The Greek inscription and below, the plaque at the base of the plinth which reads: “Reproduction in Macclesfield marble of Sir Walter Scott’s sundial at Abbotsford, Scotland. Presented by Commander Oliver Symon, R.N. Upper Sturt, in memory of Sir Josiah Symon KCMG KC 3 March 1964.
Sir Walter Scott (referenced on the plaque) was a Scottish novelist and poet of the late 18th century & early 19th centuries. This sundial therefore, ties Veale Gardens in your Park Lands to colonial biography and European antiquarian taste — a classical sculptural object placed in a mid-20th-century garden.
2. Rymill Park rose garden
Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (Park 14 of your Adelaide Park Lands) includes hundreds of roses, in multiple garden beds beside one of the diagonal pathways through the Park.
However the sundial within the rose garden is easy to overlook, as it’s in-between the rose beds midway between the diagonal east-west pathway and Dequetteville Terrace.
The sundial serves as a memorial to Mr H.L. Lipman who in the late 1950s was one of the most prominent supporters of a proposal to establish a rose garden within Rymill Park, being developed at the time. Mr Lipman died in 1960 just before these rose gardens were opened.
3. Pennington Gardens West
This sundial is known as the “Light’s Vision” sundial because it was previously located at Light’s Vision / Montefiore Hill, before it was relocated in 1936 to Pennington Gardens West, near Pennington Terrace.
The statue of Colonel William Light that stands at Montefiore Hill replaced the sundial at that location. Since 1936, this sundial has been overlooked by its very prominent neighbours; St Peters Cathedral and Adelaide Oval.
Do the sundials work?
It’s unlikely you’ll ever need to consult one of these sundials to actually find out the time, which is just as well, because of course although they have no moving parts and can’t break down, they don’t offer the sort of precision that we have come to expect from our smart watches and mobile phones.
Each of these three sundials is embossed with instructions on how to read the time, by checking where the shadow falls on the dial, and then adding a number of minutes from a diagram or chart, referring to the current date.
For example, the sundial in Pennington Gardens West advises that on 15 September, 11 minutes should be added to the time indicated by the shadow. The shadow was showing just past 9am when this photo was snapped on 14 September. Adding 11 minutes would have led me to believe the time was 9.12 or 9.13am. However the digital time stamp on the photo reveals it was taken at 9.20am.
On the Rymill Park sundial, the wavy line time correction chart suggests that for mid-September about 10 minutes should be added. Adding 10 minutes to the time indicated by the sundial shadow (8.30am) gave a sundial reading of 8.40am. The actual time of the photo was 9.03am.
On 14 September, the Veale Gardens sundial appeared to be more accurate than the other two.
The Veale Gardens sundial carries this advice around its face: Clock time is found by adding the time correction in minutes with today's date, to the shadow reading of the sundial. Add one hour in summertime.
The time correction markers on that sundial are quite hard to read, having been eroded by weather over many decades. Nevertheless the time correction for mid-September appears be 10 minutes and the shadow fell at about 8.35. Adding 10 minutes would give a time of 8.45. The photo was taken at 8.48am, so it would seem to be fairly accurate. I found that surprising, because it was crafted 120 years ago, to be located then at a different latitude (Upper Sturt rather than in your Park Lands).
See stories of other cultural history and monuments in your Adelaide Park Lands: https://www.adelaide-parklands.asn.au/cultural-history
Contributions to this series of stories are very welcome.
Inquire here: https://www.adelaide-parklands.asn.au/volunteer
