Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/606

 4 p.m. only. Further on is the church of St. Michael, famous for its thirteenth century sun-dial, which marks the hour divisions with crosses for 12, 9, and 5. A mile or two out beyond Winchester, on the Southampton-road, is the Hospice of St. Cross.

There is good authority for stating that there is no institution now existing in Great Britain which has been allowed to remain more than 700 years, that is so little changed in its original constitution as is the Hospice of St. Cross. It comprises two distinct foundations—that of Bishop Henry of Blois, grandson of William the Conqueror (1136), and of Cardinal Beaufort (1444), and both are now under the one Master of St. Cross. On the greensward facing these "castles of peace and rest" stands the dial on fluted shaft, a sketch of the upper part of which is given.

Above the porch of the fine old Norman church at Bakewell, in the Peak district, a church which is full of interest as being the burying place of the Vernons, and the Manners of Haddon Hall, is to be seen an oval stone dial dated 1793, on the upper part of which is the motto, "In such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." The soft stone is fast crumbling away, and it will soon be a thing of the past. Further north lies Castleton Church, with its old library and its finely carved pews, well worth a visit. In the churchyard is a dial, the plate of which projects far beyond its upholding column, and at its edge is serrated, Norman fashion; "Hora Pars Vita" (The Hour is a portion of Life) is the motto engraved upon the plate. The same inscription is to be found fixed to what appears to have been a cross in a church-yard in the Isle of Wight, dated 1815; also in Thursley Church, Surrey; on a church in Northumberland at Kirkwelpington, 1764; and on a church at Tavistock, dated 1814.

The singularly beautiful church at Tideswell, generally known as the Cathedral of the Peak, built in the latter half of the fourteenth century, and boasting one of the earliest Perpendicular towers in England, possesses, too, a dial, surmounted on a stately stone shaft and circular steps, the total height being about nine feet. It is in somewhat neglected condition, and the