Kirkdale sundial
Coordinates: 54°15′47.15″N 0°57′44.9″W / 54.2630972°N 0.962472°W
The Saxon sundial at St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale, near Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England is an ancient canonical sundial which dates to the mid 11th century. The panel containing the actual sundial above the church doors is flanked by two panels, bearing a rare inscription in Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons. The sundial commemorates the rebuilding of the ruined church, about the year 1055, by Orm, son of Gamal, whose Scandinavian names suggest that he may have been a descendant of Vikings who overran and settled this region in the late 9th century.
The inscription on the sundial reads as follows:
(ǷFS may be an error for ǷES, though if the letters were originally painted, as seems quite possible,the E may have appeared intact. The Anglo-Saxon character represented in this transcription by '7' stands for the conjunction 'and'. Several characters in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet but no longer used in English appear in the inscriptions. Ð/ð (called 'eth')is equivalent to modern 'th', as also is þ (called 'thorn'). Ƿ (called 'wynn') is equivalent to modern 'w'; and Æ/æ (called 'ash') is here equivalent to modern 'a').
The sundial itself is inscribed
And at the bottom of the central panel is the line
The reference is to Edward the Confessor and Earl Tostig, Edward's brother-in-law, who was the son of Earl Godwin of Wessex and the brother of Harold. Tostig held the Earldom of Northumbria from 1055 to 1065, fixing the date of the church's reconstruction to that decade. He is also known for the murder of Gamal, Orm's father. The language of the inscription is late Old English, with a failing case and gender system. The compound solmerca is otherwise unattested in English, and has been ascribed to Scandinavian influence (Old Norse solmerki 'sign of the zodiac').
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