The White (ish) Horse
The Westbury horse is the oldest in Wiltshire. It is also one of the best situated. High on a very steep slope and overlooking a panoramic view, it's immediately below the Iron Age hillfort called Bratton Camp, just north-east of Westbury. There is a car park with a viewing point on the B3098 just east of Westbury, and a car park above the horse on Westbury Hill.
There has been a white horse on the site for more than 300 years. The earliest mention of it is in "Further Observations on the White Horse and other Antiquities in Berkshire" by the Reverend Wise, published in 1742. The white horse of the title is the Uffington horse, but the author also refered to the Westbury horse. He states that he had bee told by local people that it had first been cut in the memory of persons still living or who had recently died, which suggests a date in the late sixteen hundreds.
In 1778, George Gee, who was steward to Lord Abingdon, had the horse re-cut to a design nearer to its present day appearance. He apparently felt that the older version was not a sufficiently good representation of a horse. The fact that his name was G Gee had not made him overly sensitive about horses - Honest!
A century later the horse had become misshapen, and in 1873 it was restored according to the directions of a committee appointed for the purpose. Edging stones were added to help hold the chalk in place. The shape of the present horse dates from this restoration. In the early twentieth century, concrete was added to hold the edging stones in place. In the late nineteen-fifties, it was decided that it would considerably reduce the maintenance costs if the horse were covered in concrete then painted white. The concreting was repeated in 1995. Given that the horse is now concrete, it is perhaps ironic that the marvellous panoramic view from the site of the horse is spoilt only by being bisected by the massive chimney of the local cement works. Click on the image of the original horse to hear its story.
So,
in reality, the Westbury white horse you see today is the third incarnation,
and very different from the first horse on the site. It is possible that the
original horse
was cut
based on
King Alfred's own horse on which he led the victory over the Danes in
878, fought in the surrounding area.
There used to be stories of the horse walking down to a brook every
Midsummer's Eve to take a drink. I can't see it doing that anymore. Not
since it got its concrete overcoat!