Kirkdale sundial

The ancient canonical sundial at St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale in North Yorkshire, England, near Kirkbymoorside, dates to the mid 11th century.

The sundial, discovered during a renovation in 1771, commemorates the rebuilding of the ruined church, about the year 1055, by Orm, son of Gamal, whose Scandinavian names suggest that he may have been a descendant of Vikings who overran and settled this region in the late 9th century.

[2] The inscription on the sundial reads as follows: (ǷFS may be an error for ǷES, though if the letters were originally painted, as seems quite possible, the E may have appeared intact.

(Volume 69), published in 1997, offers more persuasive interpretations of the final sentence: "First, it makes two statements: that Hawarth made the sundial (that is, he was the craftsman), and that Brand was the priest.

)[11][12][13] Part of the sundial's historical significance is its testimony that, a century and a half after the Viking colonisation of the region, the settlers' descendants such as Orm Gamalson were now using English, not Danish or Norwegian, as the appropriate language for monumental inscriptions.