SUNDIALS AND STATUARY 67 



excuse for turning our gardens into show-places for 

 specimen sculptures and examples of the wood-carver's 

 skill. 



The old-fashioned country garden generally has some 

 spot where a sundial will prove both picturesque and 

 entirely suitable. Not so the villa strip or methodically 

 arranged suburban plot, whose uncompromising newness 

 would make the addition of so venerable an object a 

 fatal anachronism. I have in mind the ideal site for a 

 sundial — a small enclosure of close-shaven turf, bounded 

 on all sides by hedges of clipped yew, with a narrow 

 entrance at either end. Here we have a tiny court, shut 

 out from the sight, if not the sounds, of the outer world, 

 where with a book we may retire for an hour's leisure 

 from the labours of the garden proper. Such a spot 

 would be dull and uninteresting without the sundial, but 

 with it as the central object, and the dark shadows of 

 the sombre yews lengthening on the grass, a garden 

 picture is complete. Such an arrangement may only be 

 possible in gardens of some magnitude, but whenever 

 possible, the dial should be so placed that from it no build- 

 ings or other signs of modernity are visible. Often the 

 end of a blind walk will form an excellent position in 

 which to place a stone or wooden dial, the path being 

 ended in an ample sweep, so that there is sufficient space 

 to walk round the base of the pedestal. A simply con- 

 structed seat would fittingly occupy the end, and if an 

 embrasure existed in the wall or hedge, one of the semi- 

 circular forms could be made to fit it exactly. 



Occasionally sundials are placed with good effect at 

 the junction of four paths, especially when these run 

 from the semi-wild parts of the garden. Where the 

 situation is flat and inclined to be formal, or where the 

 paths simply bisect an even stretch of lawn, no good 

 effect can be gained by so doing. Though it would be 

 pointless to place a sundial in a much shaded situation, 



