Hackpen White Horse
Hackpen White Horse is a chalk hill figure of a white horse on Hackpen Hill in Wiltshire, located below The Ridgeway on the edge of the Marlborough Downs, two miles south east of Broad Hinton in that county. It is one of nine white horse hill figures located in Wiltshire. The figure is also known as the Broad Hinton White Horse due to its near location to Broad Hinton.
The horse was supposedly cut by local parish clerk Henry Eatwell in 1838 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria. It is 90 square feet and is regularly scoured and maintained.
Origins and early history
The origin of the horse is uncertain,[1] and is sometimes said to be the only 19th century white horse to have little of its history known.[2] It is generally regarded that the horse was cut in 1838 by Henry Eatwell, a parish clerk of Broad Hinton, assisted by a local pub landlord.[2] It is said to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria.[1][2]
Description and location
The horse is cut of chalk, is 90 square feet, making it the only square-dimension horse in Britain. It faces west-northwest.[2] Although Hackpen Hill is relatively high for these hills, reaching 600 feet, it has a gentle slope into which the horse is carved,[2] when compared to the slopes in which most other Wiltshire horses are carved.[1] Because the hill is gentle, the horse is partly banked up and slightly raised from the surrounding grass to make it more easily visible.[1] The head was initially elevated to help with the foreshortening.[2] The best view of the horse is said to be from the nearby B4041 road,[2] whilst the A361 road near Broad Hinton also provides a clear view.[2]
At the top of the hill is a car park where the Ridgeway crosses the B4041 road, and a footpath stretches from there down to the horse, making the horse accessible to the public.[2] Many real horses often roam the field.[3]
The horse ties "neck-and-neck" with Broad Town White Horse as the closest white horse to Swindon.[4]
Scouring and recent history
The horse is regularly scoured (cleaned and maintained). In either May or June 2000, John Wain cleaned it single-handedly, taking him some five hours. He later flew David Brewer over the area to photograph the village of Broad Hinton and the white horse for brewers's book Images of a Wiltshire Downland Village: Broad Hinton and Uffcott.[1] Wain cleaned it annually until Bevan Pope cleaned the horse single-handedly on 23 September 2004.[1] Wain cleaned the horse again with the help of a group of friends on 1 February 2011 and 4 February 2012.[1] On both occasions, they illuminated the newly cleaned horse when the work was completed.[1] Although to illuminate a white horse has been sporadic tradition for other horses in Wiltshire, those occasions marked the first times it had been done for Hackpen White Horse.[5]
In March 2009, the horse was transformed into a "red horse" for the Comic Relief charity's Red Nose Day campaign; this was achieved by covering the horse's shape with numerous red sheets and fabrics.[6]
The White Horse pub, located half a mile away in Winterbourne Bassett, features an illustration resembling the horse as its logo.[7] The pub itself was named after the eight horses in Wiltshire.[7]
The horse has also featured in several artworks, including a stained glass window made by Berry Stained Glass,[8] Benoit Philppe's The Hackpen White Horse oil on canvas painting,[9] and a silver necklace created in 2015 by Devizes-based jeweller Daniel Pike.[10] In 2012, for a television advertisement for Pukka Pies, the advert modified a photograph of the location to include a hill figure of one of their pies instead of the horse.[11]
See also
| Wiltshire white horses | Other white horses |
|---|---|
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Wiltshire White Horses: The Hackpen or Broad Hinton or Winterbourne Bassett White Horse
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Hackpen White Horse
- ↑ Walking the Wessex White Horses – Hackpen
- ↑ Leighton, Barry (25 May 2016). "Scouring for those white horses". http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/14514828.Scouring_for_those_white_horses/. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
- ↑ Wiltshire White Horses: Lighting up the horses
- ↑ BBC - Wiltshire - Comic Relief - Hackpen White Horse goes red!
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The White Horse Winterbourne Bassett nr Swindon pub-food/Sunday-Lunch/Hackpen/Dog-Friendly
- ↑ Berry Stained Glass : Hackpen White Horse
- ↑ My French Easel: The Hackpen White Horse
- ↑ White horse inspiration for jeweller and artist (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)
- ↑ Hillfigures.co.uk - A site dedicated to information about hill figures