In a city famed for its glass towers and fast-paced financial markets, it is easy to forget that time was once told by shadows. Yet, across the City of London, sundials — those ancient instruments of solar timekeeping — continue to mark the hours, quietly connecting us with a much older rhythm of life. From ornate dials high on legal chambers to striking ground-level installations beside commuter routes, these features remind us that long before digital displays or ticking hands, Londoners looked to the sky to track their days. In this blog post, we explore how the City’s sundials — both historic and contemporary — serve not only as decorative curiosities but as elegant expressions of science, artistry, and civic pride.
In an age where many of us rely on our phones rather than even a traditional wristwatch to tell the time, it might come as a surprise that sundials — one of the oldest known methods of timekeeping — are still being created and installed across the City of London. Despite their reliance on the often unpredictable British sunshine and the inconvenient fact that they only function during daylight hours, sundials remain both practical tools and striking works of public art. Humans have looked to the sun to mark time for thousands of years; prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge suggest an early understanding of solar cycles, particularly in relation to the solstices.
At its core, a sundial tells the time by casting a shadow or point of light from the sun onto a marked surface. The projecting piece, known as the gnomon, is angled precisely to track the sun’s movement across the sky. The earliest known sundials date back to around 3500 BC in Egypt, with surviving examples from c.1500 BC. Interestingly, sundials were developed independently in nearly every major civilisation — a testament to their universal appeal and practicality. Mechanical clocks in a recognisable form did not emerge until the 14th century, meaning sundials reigned supreme for millennia. Today, the sundials you can find around the City come in a wide variety of designs — some traditional, others daringly modern — but all with a shared purpose: connecting us, however briefly, with the celestial patterns that once governed daily life.
A conventional sundial – Middle Temple
Walk through the quiet oasis which is Middle Temple (immediately south of Fleet Street) and you will see the oldest sundial covered in this blog. Compared with some of the others in the City of London it is pretty conventional. High up on a building in Fountain Court, opposite the north side of Middle Temple Hall it faces south and being so high up with no high rise buildings around, it can catch any sun for most of the day.
In vivid turquoise and gold it dates from 1685 and bears the initials W. T. for William Thursby, who was Treasurer of Middle Temple that year. The Latin motto on it “Discite Justitiam Moniti” is a quote from the ancient Roman poet Virgil’s Aeneid. The translation is “Be warned, learn justice” – very appropriate for this centre of the legal profession, emphasising the importance of pursuing justice.
The history of London round a dial
The next one – the Tower Hill sundial – is much more modern, dating from 1992 and was commissioned by London Underground Limited (LU). It is just outside the boundary of the City of London, on a mound up some stairs by the exit from Tower Hill Underground station. It is a popular spot for tourists as it has a wonderful view over the Tower of London but many do not stop to admire the detail on the sundial.
It was designed by the landscape architect John Chitty and the sculptor Edwin Russell (who also made the Suffragettes’ Scroll near Caxton Hall, Westminster). It is a very large horizontal dial on the ground with a giant gnomon.
If you visit it in the winter when we are using Greenwich Mean Time you have to deduct an hour from the time on the dial. Even then it can be up to 16 minutes different from the actual time, as is the case with most sundials because the tilt of the Earth’s axis changes each day.
All round the edge of the dial are scenes showing the history of London, starting on the western side of the dial with its foundation by the Romans and following the progression of the sun ending with the opening of the Thames Barrier in 1992. It shows invasions, wars, plagues, fires, kings and queens, culture, significant buildings, the development of transport and much more. I notice something new each time I visit it. The sundial is also a lab cache – definitely worth a visit if you’re a geocacher.
However, spot the error – the Peasants’ Revolt is shown as being in 1387 but it should read 1381!!
Our Roman London Walk and Samuel Pepys Walk start at the exit of Tower Hill Underground station so why not arrive a little earlier and admire this sundial.
The Noon Mark
In the north west corner of Paternoster Square, just north of St Paul’s Cathedral, is a very unusual vertical sundial which you may not even notice. It isn’t a dial and doesn’t show the time (except for once a day). The shadow reveals the day of the year at noon, hence its name the Noon Mark. It was installed on the wall of the London Stock Exchange when its new headquarters was built there in 2003. Carved into the stone, it was designed and cut by the Lida Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge who make everything by hand. The calculations for the positioning of the date marks and specifications of the gnomon were made the great sundial expert Dr Frank King, a retired Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Cambridge University and currently the Chairman of the British Sundial Society.
In bright sunshine at midday the shadow from the 4.6m gnomon shows the date – a line for the day and the name of the month. It even recognises 29 February in leap years. Several of our walks pass through Paternoster Square so remember to spot the Noon Mark.
The Blackfriars Polar Sundial
Another sundial which is not a circular dial is the Blackfriars Polar Sundial. It is a linear time piece and is known as a polar sundial because its dial plate is angled east/west at the same latitude as the location. You will find it on the river path along the north bank of the river – just to the west of the Millennium Bridge in front of the City of London School.
It was a gift to the City of London Corporation from one of the City’s livery companies, the Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers, to mark the year 2000 as part of the regeneration of the river front. It was designed by Piers Nicholson, engineered and constructed by the Royal Corps of Engineers and is one of three identical ones – the others are on the east side of the Greenwich Penninsula and in Chatham.
The horizontal “dial” is mounted on a plinth made of exactly 2,000 (to mark the millenium) blue engineering bricks. There are two rows of numbers on which the gnomon creates a shadow – one with Roman numerals, which is used to read the time during winter, and the other, with Arabic numerals i.e. 1,2,3 etc, for use during British Summer Time. Come on our River Thames walk to see this sundial and, if it is sunny, read the time.
The largest sundial in the UK
Piers Nicholson also designed the newest sundial in the City of London – unveiled in 2021. The Fleet Street Heritage Dial at 10 metres square is the largest sundial in the UK and, possibly, in Europe. It is to be found on the top of the wall at the corner of Bouverie Street and Fleet Street. 📚 Read More: Fleet Street Uncovered: Tabloids, Taverns, and Tiered Cakes
Again, it is not a dial in the normal sense and, facing east, catches the sun only in the morning. As a result it is designed to show the time only between 6am and 11am Greenwich Mean Time – so add an hour during British Summer Time. The time on the dial in the photo is shown as 8.45am but was taken at 9.45am BST so plus one hour.
It is intended to commemorate this area as the birthplace and centre of the UK’s newspaper industry for 300 years. The design incorporates the mastheads of five past newspapers – the planners would not permit the use of current newspaper masthead, presumably as they would be permanent advertisements for the papers. The offices of The Republican, a radical newspaper which flourished from 1819 to 1826, stood on this site.
Come on our Fleet Street walk to learn more about the newspaper industry and to see this unusual sundial. When you are visiting the City of London see how many more sundials you can spot.
