Some attractions take all day to explore and others can be done in a few minutes. The Perranporth Millennium Sundial takes a few minutes to visit. But that doesn’t mean you should miss it out because it’s a pretty special piece of art and, of course, given the fact this is a sundial, time is just an abstract concept anyway.
Atop the cliffs overlooking Perranporth Beach near Droskyn Car Park in Cliff Road, Perranporth, this mammoth sundial, which is technically known as the Perranzabuloe Millennium Sundial but sometimes even called the Droskyn Sundial, is a marvellous sight. It was unsurprisingly commissioned in 2000 given its full name and features a full circle of ancient standing stones made out of granite. At its centre is a 20ft stainless steel gnomon, which is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow so that we can tell the time.
The sundial was designed by local lad Stuart Thorn with the distinct purpose of telling ‘Cornish time’ instead of the usual Greenwich Mean Time. That basically means that the gnomon’s shadow points due north when the sun is at its highest and that’s actually 12 minutes earlier than GMT. Thorn designed it this way to give visitors more of a sense of place in the county.
This sundial is an incredible work of art and really puts a fine point on the fact it’s local. We say this attraction only takes up a few minutes of your time but, in reality, you should take much longer here so you can soak up those spectacular views of the coast from this great vantage point. So yeah, go and see the Perranporth Millennium Sundial if you’re in town. It’s well worth your time…