Wiltshire has many of the famed white horses, mainly of southern England.
The art of carving white horses is known as leucippotomy and dates back to prehistoric times.
There are seventeen chalk white horses across Britain and eight of them are in Wiltshire. There were a further six of them spread across the county but time and lack of management over the years has taken it's toll and they have been lost to us.
The local white horse to us here is the Cherhill White Horse, situated near the Lansdowne Monument and Oldbury castle earthworks, just off the A4. It is one of the oldest white horses left and is only predated by the Westbury white horse by just two years and by the Uffington white horse by nearly 800 years. It was first cut in 1780 by Dr Christopher Alsop of Calne who was known by some as 'the mad doctor' and was reputed to have directed the lay-out from his horse back at the bottom of the hill by shouting through a megaphone at the workers above and is said to account for the slightly unusual perspective when viewed from above.
It last had a major retoration in 2002 when it was resurfaced by the addition of 160 tonnes of new chalk.
The horse was floodlit in 1937 for the week of King George VI and the letters G & E were picked out in red lights above, all powered by a generator in the field below. It has also featured in music videos (Doctorin the Tardis from the Timelords) and famously in an advertising campaign for a motor car when it was part covered in black plastic. |
