South River School
59 Hatch Street
Marshfield, MA 02050
Sundial is located behind the school (and behind the Marshfield firehouse 60 South River Street) on the lower playground. Best driveway access is to the right of the firehouse at 60 South River Street, Park in designated areas, and walk down. ADA-compliant walkway to lower level playground and sundial.
Description:
This beautiful and educational analemmatic sundial is painted on the blue background of a 14x10 foot concrete pad. The ellipse itself has a semi-major axis of 76 inches and a semi-minor axis of 48 inches, particular suited for children. The zodiac walkway is nicely painted in white with clean stenciling of the months. The solstices and equinoxes are marked in large letters and the cardinal points are flagged in red. [Note: a number of vendors will make paper or plastic stencils that with a stiff brush create impressive lettering.] The hour marks are bright yellow suns enumerated in standard time and offset for longitude. The paint is covered with a clear sealer (Duromar DF-5610 “Solventless, Zero VOC, UV Stable Clear Polyaspartic Topcoat”) plus a bit of "shark grit" (Duromar DuroTrac "Invisible Traction Grit") to roughen the surface a bit to give some traction. This is similar to the approach taken by John Carmichael for the dial he designed at the University of Arizona, NASS Registry #825.
General Information:
Owner: South River School (educational grant funded by the Marshfield Education Foundation)
Designer: Jennifer Love (Northeastern University) and Donna Brady, Kathryn Hahn, Bariyyah Lawrence & Kim Pollard (all South River School)
Builder: McDougall Brothers, Brennan Concrete Finishing, and Duromar Inc.
Construction Date: July-December 2020
References:
Stencils for dial lettering came from StencilEase.com in Connecticut. They are reusable for multiple sundials.
