Cylinder dial for 44° North (also known as a pillar dial or shepherd dial). It comprises a wooden cylinder covered by varnished paper. A central cylindrical hole holds the cylindrical capital that carries the gnomon, which folds away. Vertical declination lines, numbered according to date, run along the bottom of the dial. The hour-lines are drawn across the declination parallels from right to left with bold lines for the hours and dotted lines for the half-hours.

Around the bottom of the cylinder are instructions on how to use the dial, written in French, and translated as follows: 'Remove the stopper, open the gnomon, replace the stopper turning it so that the open gnomon is placed above the line corresponding to the date, place or suspend in the Sun, the shadow of the gnomon following the line of the date, and its point will indicate the hour by the curved line on which it falls'. The design for this instrument may have been available in paper form for construction of the dial by the buyer. It is signed 'À PARIS. HENRY ROBERT HORLOGER, AU PALAIS-ROYAL. N° . 164.' These instruments originally came in cases with calendar, instructions and trade label (see, for example, the sale catalogue from the Time Museum, Rockford, 1988).

This dial would have been used in Southern France, but other dials remain for other latitudes. There is one in the Whipple collection (accession no. Wh: 0264) which is delineated for 48° North. Another in the MHS Oxford (new inventory no. 48791) was made for the latitude 49° North.

For more information regarding this dial please refer to the OUP & NMM catalogue, 'Sundials at Greenwich'.