Another feature of interest to be found on many an eighteenth-century house is the sundial. A specimen from High Wycombe is shown in Fig. 237, but almost every market town, and not a few villages, can produce examples as good. Sometimes an appropriate sentiment or an apt quotation was inscribed on the dial, but the number of cases where this occurs is not quite so great as the literature on the subject would lead one to suppose. In those days, when no cheap watches were to be had, when indeed a watch was handed down from one generation to another as a valuable possession, sundials were of real use, even though they told none but sunny hours. “The Art of Dialling” was a recognised branch of polite learning, and an intricate subject it was; dealing not only with horizontal and vertical dials, but with those which faced in some other direction than due south. Dial stones may sometimes be seen with one side brought slightly forward, so that the face is not quite parallel with the wall in which it is set. This is an expedient to make the face look due south, in order to simplify the setting out of the lines. Needless to say that when the sun was relied on to tell the hour of the day, the introduction of “Summer time” would have been impossible; for the power to set back the shadow on the dial, as it was set back on that of Ahaz, has never been given to man. [Illustration: FIG. 235.--Seventeenth-Century Date-Stones. 1. Bulwick, Northamptonshire. 2. Drayton, Leicestershire. 3. Moulton, Northamptonshire.] [Illustration: FIG. 236.--Date-Stone from Amersham, Buckinghamshire.] [Illustration: FIG. 237.--Sundial from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.] [Illustration: FIG. 238.--GATE-PIERS AT CANONS ASHBY, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. Drawn by H. Inigo Triggs.] [Illustration: FIG. 239.--Wooden Gates, Canons Ashby.] [Illustration: FIG. 240.--Design for Temple Bar, London, by Inigo Jones, 1636. From the Burlington-Devonshire Collection at the R.I.B.A.] [Illustration: FIG. 241.--Drawing of Gateway by Inigo Jones.] [Illustration: FIG. 242.--Gate-Piers at Coleshill, Berkshire.] [Illustration: FIG. 243.--Gate-Piers at St John’s College, Cambridge.] [Illustration: FIG. 244.--Gate-Pier at Hampton Court.] [Illustration: FIG. 245.--GATEWAY AT BURLEY-ON-THE HILL, RUTLAND.] [Illustration: FIG. 246.--Lion Lodge, Ince Blundell, Lancashire.] [Illustration: FIG. 247.--Gateway at Castor, Northamptonshire.] [Illustration: FIG. 248.--Gate-Piers at Rundhurst, Sussex. J. A. Gotch, _del._]