The Sundial, Horsham Road, South Holmwood
Photograph: Kathy Atherton

The Sundial sits at the roadside to the north of South Holmwood village. It was designed by Arnold Dunbar Smith and bears a sundial reading ‘Let others tell of storms and showers, I tell of sunny morning hours’ on the wall facing onto the Common.

The small house was built on the site of two ancient cottages by the Pethick Lawrences (see The Dutch House) in 1903 to form a country home for Emmeline Pethick Lawrence’s Esperance club for working class London girls. It has design elements in common with the Pethick Lawrence’s nearby Dutch House, in particular the Y-shaped layout.

To this house the Pethick Lawrences and their associates in the London settlement missions would bring parties of young women and their children for breaks in the healthy air of the Holmwood.

It was let by subsequent owners as a holiday home. Originally very small, with two dormitory bedrooms, it has been recently extended with the addition of a further bay to the rear.

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