A sundial is made for you, to your specification, and then it is delivered. This page is where that starts.
Robert has taken orders by telephone, by post and across the counter of the showroom for over twenty years, and all three still work exactly as they did. The one thing missing was a way to hold a piece at the hour you settled on it. Card details are given to Robert on the telephone, and the telephone is answered in working hours.
So there is no basket here and nothing is for sale by the click. There is a specification: which piece, which size, how it is finished, what is engraved on it and how it reaches you. Write it down, reserve your place in the workshop queue with a deposit, and the conversation happens afterwards with the piece already spoken for.
Six stages, in order. There is no lead time in weeks on this page, because Robert has not set one: the workshop tells you where you stand when it confirms your specification.
Sundials here are ordered by telephone, by post, or across the counter at Maw's Craft Centre, and all three still work. If you are at all unsure, begin with the telephone: the workshop and showroom are on 01952 884057, the office is on 01746 783714.
What gets talked about is the piece, the pedestal it will stand on, and where in the garden it is going, because a dial has to be able to see the sun.
Which piece, which size, how it is finished, and what if anything is engraved on it.
The engraving is where the meaning goes. On the Regency and the Jacobean you choose between a plain dial and one carrying your words, and the difference is there in the two prices. On the Presentation the inscription is included. On an armillary it runs along the top of the equator band and the guide price is from £65.00, because what it costs depends on how many words there are. Where a dial has no surface that suits, a separate brass plaque can usually be fixed to the top of the pedestal instead.
A deposit reserves your place in the workshop queue and fixes the specification and the price. It is not a purchase and it is not the whole sum.
The balance falls due when the piece is finished, before it is delivered. What a deposit does commit each of you to, and what it does not, is set out in full further down this page.
Every piece is made by hand at the workshop in Jackfield. On an armillary the Roman numerals are fitted to the bands, and the horizon band is adjustable, so the sphere can be trued to the latitude of your own garden.
Robert does not publish a lead time in weeks. It depends on what is already on the bench and on what you have asked for, so the workshop tells you where you stand when it confirms your specification.
Bronze pieces are weathered to a rich antique patina. Brass leaves the workshop bright, and Robert's own note beside the brass dials is worth repeating: "Brass will soon tarnish if left to weather, taking on the antique appearance most people find attractive. A light polish now and again will, however, restore a vintage gleam."
Brass armillaries can also be given that weathered antique appearance here, if you would rather not wait for the weather to do it. The inscription is cut into the piece itself, or into the brass plaque where the piece has no surface for it.
Delivery is £20.00 for an armillary or a wall sundial, and £15.00 for a horizontal dial. Robert delivers and installs many dials himself, and more than one of the letters on this site says so: "Thank you so much for coming all that way to install our new sundial."
Ask for that on the specification below and he will tell you what is possible when he calls. Pedestals are the one thing that does not travel: long distance pedestal delivery is not practical, though there is often a small selection at the craft centre, and Robert can point you at a maker.
Every price here is Robert's own, taken from his catalogue. Change anything and the figures follow.
It is the eleven o'clock problem. You settle on a piece in the evening, and the only way to give Robert your card details is to ring him in the morning, by which time the morning has had a chance to talk you out of it.
This is the part that fixes it. The deposit is paid at whatever hour you decided, your specification is fixed at the price shown, and your place in the queue is held in your name. The conversation still happens, on the telephone, as it always has.
The balance falls due when the piece is finished, before it is delivered. Engraving and delivery are charged with the balance, not with the deposit.
Payment is not connected yet. A Stripe payment link belongs in this box and is wired in when the site goes live. Nothing on this page can take a payment today, and nothing you have chosen here has been sent anywhere.
Draft wording, not yet agreed. Robert has not set these terms. They are written out here in plain English so that he has something to react to, and they need his confirmation, or his corrections, before this page goes live. Until then nothing on this page binds anybody, and the deposit figure above is a draft too.
A place in the workshop queue in your name, and the specification and the price exactly as they are written above. Neither changes afterwards unless you ask for a change.
It is not payment for the sundial, and it is not a purchase. The balance, with any engraving and any delivery charge, falls due when the piece is finished and before it leaves the workshop.
Before work on your piece has begun, the deposit is returned in full on request. Once work has begun it covers the materials and the time already spent on a piece made to your specification, and it is not returned. Robert tells you when work is about to start, so you always know which side of that line you are on.
If the piece cannot be made as specified, or Robert cannot complete it, the deposit is returned in full and nothing further is owed.
Engraving is cut to your words and cannot be taken back out, so the wording is read back to you and agreed before anything is cut.
A sundial made to your specification is made for you and for nobody else, which is why the terms above turn on the moment work starts rather than on a date.
Four routes, all of them real, none of them second best. Nothing about commissioning a sundial has to go through a screen.
robert@sundialsbyrobertfoster.co.uk
Write, or send the specification straight from this page. Card details still go by telephone.
Print the order form, fill it in and send it to the workshop. Cheques payable to SUNDIALS.
Sundials, Maw's Craft Centre, Jackfield, Telford, TF8 7LS
Order form (PDF)The showroom is at Maw's Craft Centre in Jackfield. When planning a visit, please phone to make sure someone is on hand.
How to find the workshop