Fig. 233.—Cupola at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Fig. 234.—Cupola at Caius College, Cambridge.

While fancy still played a part in the work of local masons, the little date-stones shown in Fig. [235] were built into some unpretentious houses in the Midlands; but a hundred years later the diligent pursuit of correctitude had banished such touches from the work of architects, and masons had lost the feeling which gave rise to them. They are, however, quite suggestive, and provide ideas for the perpetuation of the owner’s name and the date of his work—facts which are of interest in respect of all buildings. The example from Amersham is rather more ambitious, but hardly more successful (Fig. [236]).

Another feature of interest to be found on many an eighteenth-century house is the sundial. A specimen from High Wycombe is shown in Fig. [237], but almost every market town, and not a few villages, can produce examples as good. Sometimes an appropriate sentiment or an apt quotation was inscribed on the dial, but the number of cases where this occurs is not quite so great as the literature on the subject would lead one to suppose. In those days, when no cheap watches were to be had, when indeed a watch was handed down from one generation to another as a valuable possession, sundials were of real use, even though they told none but sunny hours. “The Art of Dialling” was a recognised branch of polite learning, and an intricate subject it was; dealing not only with horizontal and vertical dials, but with those which faced in some other direction than due south. Dial stones may sometimes be seen with one side brought slightly forward, so that the face is not quite parallel with the wall in which it is set. This is an expedient to make the face look due south, in order to simplify the setting out of the lines. Needless to say that when the sun was relied on to tell the hour of the day, the introduction of “Summer time” would have been impossible; for the power to set back the shadow on the dial, as it was set back on that of Ahaz, has never been given to man.

Fig. 235.—Seventeenth-Century Date-Stones.