Warhill Sundial

The Warhill Sundial is behind Mottram Church.

It was a Medieval cross originally, but heavily restored in 1760 and 1897. The stepped circular ashlar plinth is inscribed "Restored in commemoration of the sixtieth year of the reign of Queen Victoria 1897". The octagonal shaft on the moulded base has a foliated capital and supports a cubical sundial with 3 copper faces. The front face is inscribed "hora pars vitae", the rear "and watch and pray time hastes away when time is done eternity comes on".

According to the Public Monument and Sculpture Association

"It is widely assumed that the present sundial stands on or close to the site of the Mottram Cross though both the documentary and archaeological evidence of an older cross is frustratingly slight. It is unclear when a cross was first built and when a sundial was added. Writing shortly after the erection of the present monument, Thomas Middleton repeated the local tradition that the cross was erected in or about 1760 though he did note that there appeared to be some confusion about whether the reports referred to the Mottram Crown Pole which was also raised in that coronation year. Aikin, or more likely Stockdale who had first-hand knowledge of Mottram, noted the existence of an ancient cross by the churchyard in the much quoted volume of 1795. Notes made by John Wagstaffe, churchwarden at St Michael's, state that the sundial was the work of a Mr Wardleworth. It is, however, known that the present sundial was built using stone from the earlier cross, and erected in honour of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The new sundial was situated a short distance from the place where the cross stood and was paid for by 'a few private subscribers'."