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Archaeologia Cantiana - Vol. 127   2007 page 338

The Scratch Dials of Kent. By Chris H. K. Williams

he recorded, as opposed to listed, is not known.21 Neither is it known who assisted him in his searches.22 Interestingly Grove cites (in addition to Winzar and Welland) credits for Peter Lambert, R.J. Spain and Mrs C. Young. Clearly not all the detailed researches of the 1970s have yet found their way into the public domain. Hopefully these have not been irretrievably lost and await (re)discovery.
   During the 1990s Chambers began his as yet uncompleted photographic recording. The British Sundial Society has also received ad hoc reports and recorded individual dials and churches. Extensive and valuable as all this work is, it does not yet constitute a completed county recording – a task The British Sundial Society has completed for about a dozen counties.
   Combining the individual listings, scratch dials have been noted on 135 separate Kentish churches (Table 2 and Fig. 3). Table 2 also shows the prevalence of multiple dials. Whilst at first sight such redundancy might appear odd, over the centuries there would have been several triggers

TABLE 2. KENTa CHURCHES WITH SCRATCH DIAL(S)

Diocese

Churchesb
with dial(s)

Scratch dials per churchc

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10+  

Roch.

28   

19

6

2

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

Cby

107   

50

22

15

9

5

3

-

2

-

1

Total

135   

69

28

17

10

5

3

-

2

-

1

Notes:
a The pre-1832 historic county of Kent as mapped by the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies. See C.R. Humphrey-Smith, Atlas & Index of Parish Registers, 1984, 1995, 2003.
b Source: Table 1 and Annex listings.
c For each church the listing with the highest number of dials is taken. 13 churches have no quantified listing – these are included in 1 dial category

precipitating dial redundancy. A new dial might have been necessitated by the building of a porch or growth of trees; a new location might simply have become more convenient; a different type of dial might have been considered more appropriate (to be discussed later); or some priests might have wished to leave their own mark. Scratch dials are heavily concentrated in Canterbury diocese reflecting both a higher survival of medieval churches and a higher scratch dial likelihood per church (Table 3).
   Comparison with listings of those counties for which complete surveys of eligible churches have been published indicates that Kent is not atypical (Table 4).23 The similarity suggests that although Kent does not yet have a full recording of its dials, its listing is (virtually) complete.24

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