47°24' N

The sundials at the Town Hall at Saint-Cyr.
They are two sundials situated on the east wall of Saint-Cyr Town Hall, near Tours. They are not particularly old, dating only from October 1979. The designer left his initials, Y. T. They are carved on each of two blocks of stone, about 40 cm by 60 cm, several centimetres thick. The blocks are fixed by three fastenings, to each end of the east-facing wall of the building, about three or four metres above the ground.
At first sight, the lines look a little odd but in fact they are absolutely standard. It is simply the unusual orientation that gives this impression.
The style is a metal rod, oriented North-South, and so in this case it is almost parallel to the dial surface.

Sundial No. 1

Only the hour lines between 3 o'clock to 12 o'clock are marked, since after midday the sundial is not lit by the sun because of its east-facing direction. Notice that the hour line for 3 in the morning is redundant for at this location the sun cannot cast a shadow so early in the morning.
The eleventh hour is itself divided by three other lines, corresponding to 20 minutes (XX), 40 minutes (XL) and 50 minutes (L). It looks as though there is an error in these lines: In fact, the distances between the 11:40am and the 11:50am lines appear to be too small, it ought to be bigger than the one between the 11:20 am and 11:40 am and smaller than the one between the 11:50 am and 12 o'clock.
In addition the monthly "lines of declination"are drawn, indicating the days where the signs of the zodiac change, that is to say, from 19th. to 23th. depending on the month, and the summer and the winter solstice. Remember that a "line of declination " is the curve follows by the end of the shadow in a given day, (the solstice curve is in fact a straight line!). As the sun passes at the same height twice during a year, the two dates are recorded at each end of the "lines of declination". You can read on the sundial that the photo was taken either around 10th. October or the first days of March. It was almost 11:20 am. ( by sun time).
The spaces located between III/IV, V/VI, VII/VIII and IX/X hour lines are indented. In the space between the 11 and 12 hour lines, only the parts corresponding to the months of June, August and October and the part above the winter solstice are indented.
The sundial uses Roman numerals.
The motto "LUCEM DEMONSTRAT UMBRA" means "Shadows give light ".

Sundial No 2
As on the first dial and for the same reason, only the hourlines from 3 am to noon are drawn. Notice ( just as the first dial ) that the presence of the noon line indicates that its orientation is not exactly East. The spaces situated between the VI/VII, VIII/IX and X/XI lines are indented.

The main chacteristic of this dial is on the right side. In effect it is a moon/sun dial. On the right side, there are a series of Roman numerals corresponding to the number of days before (DIES ANTE) and after (DIES POST) the Full Moon, for the fortnight during which the moon is sufficiently bright as to cast a shadow to show the time. Symbols showing the moon's phases are carved to aid reading. From these marks, lines extend horizontally to a curve where there are a set of numbers. These numbers. represent the amount of hours to subtract (lower part) or add (upper part) to the time read by the moonlight and so convert it in sun time.

The Latin motto is " HORAS NON NUMERO NISI SERENAS" and roughly translated, it is " I count only the sunny hours ".