'Timepiece' by Wendy Taylor. Thames Embankment, London
Posted by: 
Team Sieni
N 51° 30.372 W 000° 04.350
30U E 703158 N 5710182
On the N bank of the Thames, just to the E of Tower Bridge.
Waymark Code: WM2PEK
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/01/2007
Views: 126
This sundial was designed by the artist Wendy Taylor.
The plaque (an image of which is attached to this waymark) reads:
"The sundial is one of man's oldest astronomical instruments. In this particular form, known as an Equinoctial Sundial, the dial is in the same plane as the earth's equator and the gnomon, or rod, is parallel to the axis of the earth pointing true north. The shadow of the gnomon moving across the dial indicates the time. In summer the shadow falls on the face of the dial, in winter on the inner edge.
Due to a combination of the tilt of the earth's axis and the varying speed of the earth's progress on its elliptical path around the sun the time indicated differs by several minutes from the time shown by a clock which measures mean time - an average of these variations.
This sundial was designed by Wendy Taylor and commissioned by Strand Hotels Limited in March 1973."
There is a graph for correcting the sundial time to Greenwich Mean Time (aka UTC) according to the time of year.