Westbury White Horse
The Westbury or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately a mile and a half east of Westbury in Wiltshire. It is cut into the edge of Bratton Downs and found just below an Iron Age hill fort. This is argued to be the oldest of several white horses carved in Wiltshire.
The horse was restored in 1778 and is has been suggested that this obliterated a previous horse which had occupied the same slope) a contemporary engraving of the 1760s appears to show a horse facing in the opposite direction, and also rather smaller than the present figure. However, there is at present no documentary or other evidence for the existence of a chalk horse at Westbury before the year 1742.
The origin of the Westbury White Horse is obscure. It is often claimed to commemorate King Alfred's victory at the Battle of Ethandun in 878, and while this is not impossible, there is no trace of such a legend before the second half of the eighteenth century. It should also be noted that the battle of Eðandun has only tentatively been identified with Edington in Wiltshire.
Origins
A white horse war standard was associated with the continental Saxons in the Dark Ages, and the figures of Hengest and Horsa who, according to legend, led the first Anglo-Saxon invaders into England. Both their names mean "stallion" and much later tradtition has them fighting under a white horse standard, from which comes the heraldic badge of Kent. Whether the horse was carved as a Saxon symbol cannot be known, but a claim is often made that it was carved to celebrate the West Saxon victory over the Danes nearby at the Battle of Ethandune, if Ethandune was indeed nearby. Illtyd Trethowan disagreed strongly with such a link.[1]
Another white horse, that of Uffington, featured in King Alfred's earlier life. Alfred was born in Wantage, in the Vale of White Horse, not far from Uffington. Unlike Westbury, documents as early as the eleventh century refer to the "White Horse Hill" at Uffington ("mons albi equi"), and archaeological evidence has dated the Uffington White Horse to the Bronze Age, although it is not certain that it was originally intended to represent a horse.
Despite the assumption of the horse's ancient origin, here is no record of the horse until the eighteenth century, and so it may have been carved only then. In 1714, King George I ascended the throne, the first of the House of Hanover, whose heraldic badge was a white horse. It is argued by some scholars that the Westbury White Horse may have first been carved in the early eighteenth century as a Protestant symbol of loyalty to the new reigning house.
In the 1950s, the horse was vandalised. It was repaired, but the damage could still be seen. The horse was fully restored in 2007 but less than four years later is again showing signs of serious visible distress. The BBC announced on 2 March 2012 that it is to be cleaned again in 2012.[2] Work began 11 April 2012, complete 19 April 2012.
In popular culture
- The figure can be seen in Breathe, a music video by Midge Ure.
- The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje has the Westbury White Horse as the location where the sapper Kip learned how to deactivate bombs.
- The Emigrants by Caribbean author George Lamming references the horse too.
See also
References
- Location map: 51°15’49"N, 2°8’49"W
- ↑ Illtyd Trethowan, 'Alfred and the Great White Horse of Wiltshire', in Downside Review vol. LVII (1939)
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-17237313
- Reverend Francis Wise, Further Observations on the White Horse and other Antiquities in Berkshire (1742)
- William Plenderleath, White Horses of the West of England (1885, 2nd edition 1892)
- Morris Marples, White Horses and Other Hill Figures (1949)
- Westbury White Horse at Wiltshire White Horses
- The White (ish) Horse at ThisisWestbury.co.uk, Westbury's history website
- Wiltshire Web information
Books
- Plenderleath, Rev. W C, The White Horses of the West of England (London: Allen & Storr, 1892)
