Along the top of the dial and round the perimeter the inscription reads:-- + PIS IS DAEGES SOL MERCA THIS IS DAY'S SUNMARKER AET ILCVM TIDE AT EACH TIDE OR HOUR. It is interesting to know that the antiquaries of a century or more ago rendered this simple sentence as: "This is a draught exhibiting the time of day, while the sun is passing to and from the winter-solstice." They also made a great muddle of the words: "& HE HIT LET MACAN NEWAN," their rendering being "CHEHITLE AND MAN NEWAN," the translation being supposed to read: "Chehitle and others renewed it, etc." With Mr Brooke's paper is given a large steel engraving of the stone, but it is curiously inaccurate in many details. At Edstone church there is another sundial over the south doorway as at Kirkdale, and there is every reason to believe that it belongs to the same period. The inscription above the dial reads:-- OROLOGI VIATORUM. On the left side is the following:-- LOTHAN ME WROHTE A. [Illustration: Saxon Sundial at Edstone. (From a rubbing by Mr J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A.)] From the drawing given here the inscription is palpably incomplete, as though the writer had been suddenly stopped in his work. Nothing is known of Lothan beyond the making of this sundial, so that the fixing of the date can only be by comparative reasoning. At Kirkdale, on the other hand, we know that Tosti, Harold's brother, became Earl of Northumbria in 1055, we know also that the Northumbrians rose against Tosti's misgovernment and his many crimes, among which must be placed the murder of the Gamal mentioned in the inscription, and that in 1065 Tosti was outlawed, his house-carles killed, and his treasures seized. After this we also know that Tosti was defeated by the Earls Edwin and Morcar, and having fled to Scotland, submitted himself to Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, who had arrived in the Tyne with his fleet early in September 1066, that they then sailed southwards, and having sacked Scarborough defeated Edwin and Morcar at Fulford near York only eight days before the landing of William the Norman at Pevensey. Harold having made forced marches reached York on September the 24th, and defeated his brother and the Norwegian king, both being slain in the battle which was fought at Stamford Bridge on the Derwent. Harold was forced to take his wearied army southwards immediately after the battle to meet the Frenchmen at Hastings, and the great disaster of Senlac Hill occurred on October the 14th. This stone at Kirkdale is thus concerned with momentous events in English history, for the murder of Gamal and the insurrection of Tosti may be considered two of the links in the chain of events leading to the Norman Conquest.