THE OLD - Old Wirral.com

THE OLD CHURCHES OF WIRRAL
That at Shotwick is dated 1767 upon the
dial plate, but 1720 is inscribed upon the
shaft, the church register recording that
the cost of " carving ye letters " was only
one shilling. A somewhat similar entry
occurs in the West Kirby churchwarden's
accounts recording the cost of changing
the position of the sun-dial and resetting
the plate, and again the items are in
pence. Recently the sun-dial was moved
a second time, and one wonders what the
bill was in these post-war labour-troublous
days. Backford, Stoak, Eastham, Hes-
wall, Burton, Bidston, and Neston all
possess old sun-dials, reminding us of the
way mankind has played with time.
Lovers of these relics deprecate too antiquarian
an interest in such poetic
fragments of the past.
"
If a husky-voiced antiquarian," says
Launcelot Cross in his " Book of Old Sundials,"
"were to discourse upon a sundial
to some of the elect of his fraternity,
although it were in a green country
churchyard with the severe stillness of
nature around, the aroma of the motto
would instantly depart. The exhortative
words would remain, but—harsh to the
eye, cold to the ear— the spirit that gave
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