Armillary Sphere at the Churchill Hospital (2012)
This armillary sphere, etched with American and British time, celebrates the American army's association with the Churchill Hospital. It is opposite the main entrance of the hospital, near the relocated American Garden, and was created in stainless steel by David Harber of Aston Upthorpe in Oxfordshire soon after the new Cancer Centre opened in 2011.
The photograph (right) shows the plaque under the sculpture (with a reflection of the American Garden). It reads:
Equation of time
Sundials do not tell Mean Time (clock time) but “Local Apparent Time”. For each degree of longitude West of the local meridian from Greenwich, the dial is 4 minutes “slow” and for each degree East it is 4 minutes “fast”.
The sun also varies in its time-keeping rate throughout the year, sometimes “losing” and sometimes “gaining”. This is known as the Equation of Time. The graph below indicates this equation throughout the year.
Description of all the works of art in the
Cancer and Haematology Centre
at the Churchill Hospital
