Western Neighborhoods Project is dedicated to the history of San Francisco's Richmond, Sunset, OMI and West of Twin Peaks districts. read more ...
A few minutes' ride by trolley out of the deafening roar of the business center of San Francisco there is a garden spot---a green amphitheater overlooking the shining reaches of the blue Pacific. It spreads out under the sun like an old Italian villa. By a series of velvety terraces, the uppermost of which is crowned by a thick wood of pine and cedar, it drops down to a sunken garden wherein lies a great stone sundial, the largest and most magnificent sundial in the world.
Of all the attractive spots in or around San Francisco there is none more wholly delightful than this sundial park at Ingleside Terraces. It is a place full of color, fragrance and song, for the birds throughout the long, sunny hours fill the air with their melody.
That the location is favored by a mild climate may be inferred from the reproduced photograph on the opposite page, taken on the evening of the sundial dedication. 1
There is a curious fascination about the spot and one may well spend here an instructive and inspiring hour following in the wake of the sun's slow shadow.
The gigantic granite gnomon of the sundial at Ingleside Terraces is triangular in shape, and superb in its simplicity of outline. It rises to a height of twenty-six feet. It bridges a limpid pool wherein two bronze seals sport and form the base of a fountain that plays day and night. 2 Running around the stone curb of the pool is a rippling circlet of gorgeous purple and yellow pansies. Then comes the broad dial marked with Roman numerals like the face of a clock. On one side of the gnomon is set an exact table giving the minutes that must be added to or be deducted from sundial time in order to get true local time.
Sundial at Ingleside Terraces Intro
Previous page --- Next page
Notes:
1. The dedication ceremony was on October 10, 1913.
2. The fountain and reflecting pool disappeared before the 1920s.
Images: Courtesy of Margie Whitnah (a WNP member)
Read more about the Sundial and Ingleside Terraces!Contribute your own stories about western neighborhoods places.
Page launched 6 May 2002; updated 17 June 2008.
