ENGLISH WHITE HORSES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 282, 26 August 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

ENGLISH WHITE HORSES

Carved In The Chalk Of The Rolling Downs

Most of the White Horses were ent. in the chalk- of the English Downs by large-hearted eighteenth-century landowners who wanted to improve the landscape for posterity, says "The Sunday Times.” They also planted many of those clumps of splendid beeches which weld together downland scenery.

Of the two White Horses in England known Io be ancient, only that in Berkshire retains its original form. The other, at Westbury. Wiltshire, was remo'delled to look more like a horse. The Berkshire Horse has a willowy back, detached legs, and a bird-like head on whose eye people stand and wish. The impressionist effect of its body becomes .more equine when it is seen from a few miles away, or from an aeroplane

The custom of scouring the White Horse of weeds is known to have existed before 1G77. At irregular in-

tervals, every five years or so, the whole neighbourhood would resort to the hill. When the Horse was cleaned, people made merry at a fair held in the fort. Backsword and wrestling contests were held. A cheese was rolled down “the manger,” the bowl of land below the Horse, and pursued. A Whit-Monday cheese-chasing custom survives at Cooper’s Hill, outside Cheltenham.

The last public scouring was in 1857. ami there are no local people alive with a clear recollect ion of it. Opinions vary as to whether it was stopped by Lady Craven, the largest landowner in the district and owner of the site, because it became too unlicensed, or whether Hie custom 'died from local apathy. At any rate, the Horse was weeded by employees of the Craven Estate till recently, when it was presented to the nation. It is now looked after by the Office of Works.