St Andrews - NS ? - Gatty ? - Ross ?
South Street, St Andrews
Visited ? - A. R. Somerville
Visited 29 Aug 2004 - Author
This is one of my favourite dials. Partly because I like St Andrews so much, partly because there is Janetta's Ice Cream shop nearby and partly because it is so evocative of its time. I have passed it dozens of times and whenever the sun was shining taken a photograph so what you see above is a selection from the long, foggy St Andrews summer of 2004. It was such a foggy summer that my 'gnome bagging' (made up from gnomonics and castle bagging) was sadly curtailed.
If you pass by this dial then you must also go to see the facet dial in the beautiful St Mary's Quad which is across the road behind Lower Parliament Hall. Just next to that dial there is a little swirl of a fountain by Hew Lorimer.
'famous graduate of St Andrews was secretary to the 1778 Peace Commissioners (to whom the Rebels wouldn't talk): Prof. Adam Ferguson, one of the Enlightenment's great figures. He taught at the University of Edinburgh, and it was at his house at the Sciennes that Robert Burns and Walter Scott met for the first and only time, when Scott was an adolescent. The Prof. retired back to St. Andrews (his house, with sundial over the door, can still be seen on South Street), and is buried in the Cathedral grounds. The epitaph on his memorial is by Sir Walter Scott. The Prof. was also Pattie Ferguson's first biographer (a family friend, but no relation)'
www.silverwhistle.co.uk/tour/Fife.html