Westbury White Horse

The Westbury White Horse or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of Westbury in Wiltshire. It is the oldest of eight white horses in Wiltshire, dating at least from the late 17th or early 18th century. It has been restored several times, which may have obliterated other white horse figures on the same slope. A small early 19th-century engraving shows a horse facing in the opposite direction. There is, however, no evidence for the existence of a chalk horse at Westbury before 1742, and it was reported then to have been created within living memory.

The horse is 180 ft (55 m) tall and 170 ft (52 m) wide and has been adopted as a symbol for the town of Westbury, appearing on welcome signs. It is also considered a symbol for Wiltshire as a whole.

The horse is on Westbury Hill, a steeply sloping hillside on the edge of the Bratton Downs, below the Iron Age hillfort called Bratton Castle, or Camp, and within clear sight of Westbury, but nearer to the village of Bratton.^[1] The horse is now just within the civil parish of Bratton, but that was a tithing of the ancient parish of Westbury until 1894, when it became a separate civil parish.^[2]

The name "Westbury White Horse" has earlier sources than "Bratton White Horse", but the Bratton name has also been in use since the mid 19th century.^[3] In reporting on the dispute in 1934, the Wiltshire News claimed

If you mention the Westbury White Horse in the parish of Bratton, the parishioners prick up their ears and say, "It's the Bratton White Horse." If you mention the Bratton White Horse in Westbury, the locals say they have never seen it."^[4]

The Westbury or Bratton White Horse is the oldest of the Wiltshire chalk horses,^[1] and its origins are obscure.^[1] It is often claimed to commemorate King Alfred's victory at the Battle of Ethandun in 878, but there is no trace of such a legend before the 19th century. Since the late 19th century, historians have mostly located the battle at Edington in Wiltshire, some two miles (3.2 km) away from the white horse, but this theory is still open to debate. In Alfred and the Great White Horse of Wiltshire (1939), the Downside Abbey monk Dom Illtyd Trethowan debunked the suggested connection of the Westbury White Horse with Alfred and the Battle of Ethandune.^[5]

Another hillside chalk figure, the Uffington White Horse, featured in King Alfred's early life, as he was born in the Vale of White Horse, not far from Uffington in Oxfordshire. Unlike the recorded history of Westbury, documents as early as the eleventh century refer to the "White Horse Hill" at Uffington ("mons albi equi"), and archaeological work has dated the Uffington White Horse to the Bronze Age, although it is not certain that it was originally intended to represent a horse.^[6] A white horse war standard was associated with the continental Saxons in the Dark Ages. In his 17th-century work Monumenta Britannica, John Aubrey connected the Uffington horse with Hengist and Horsa, stating that "the White Horse was their Standard at the Conquest of Britain". Aubrey, a Wiltshireman who studied the county's antiquities, mentions no chalk figures in Wiltshire;^[7] nor does Bishop Edmund Gibson, who edited the Camden's Britannia edition of 1695.^[8]

The earliest mention of any chalk figure at Westbury is in a work by Francis Wise published at Oxford in 1742. He suggested a link with Alfred the Great for the Uffington horse, but not for the one at Westbury, having visited the town and been told that the horse there was "wrought within the memory of persons now living or but very lately dead".^[9][10] This suggests at the earliest a late-seventeenth-century origin for the figure.^[11]

A large map of Wiltshire by Andrews and Dury published in several sheets in 1773 shows a Westbury horse much the same as the present one, facing to the left, and with long legs.^[12]

In both of Richard Gough's editions of William Camden's Britannia, published in 1789 and 1806, he takes an interest in chalk horses. In his 1789 edition, he supports a connection between the Uffington horse and the Battle of Ashdown.^[13] He also says he surveyed the Westbury horse in 1772 and gives this description of it:

On the south-west face of the hill is a most curious monument unnoticed by Bishop Gibson: a white horse in a walking attitude cut out of the chalk, fifty-four feet high from his toe to his chest, and to the tip of his ear near one hundred feet high, and from ear to tail one hundred feet long..." ^[8]

This gives a size smaller than the measurements of the present horse,^[14] and Gough mentions no design or features. He adds that he disagrees with Wise and sees this as undoubtedly a memorial to a victory of Alfred, comparing it with the horse at Uffington.^[8] In his second edition of 1806, Gough prints a small engraving showing a horse-like animal with a saddle and very short legs facing to the right, which does not seem to match his survey of 1772, and he offers no comment on it.^[15]

There is a local view that the current white horse, facing to the left, was cut in 1778 by a Mr Gee, who overlaid a smaller, older chalk figure, believed also to have represented a horse. The basis for this other horse appears to be the Gough image of 1806.^[16] Morris Marples, in his White Horses and Other Hill Figures (1949), takes the view that the date of the Westbury horse is "about 1700 or perhaps a little earlier".^[17] For him, it follows that if the "peculiar figure, so unlike any other known representation of the horse" existed, then it was "a deliberate fake, perhaps even a practical joke".^[18][1]

During the 18th century, the White Horse of Hanover was a heraldic symbol associated with the new British royal family, the House of Hanover. Noting this, in 1904 Arthur Charles Fox-Davies claimed that "Everyone in this country is familiar with the expression "the white horse of Hanover".^[19] It is argued by some commentators that the Westbury White Horse may have been created in the early 18th century as a symbol of loyalty to the new Protestant reigning house.^[16]

A fox hunting report in a London newspaper of October 1801 mentions the "Westbury White Horse" by that name.^[20]

Richard Colt Hoare's Ancient History of South Wiltshire (1812) shows a horse very similar to the present-day one.^[14]

During the 19th century the horse was periodically reshaped and repaired.^[21]

In 1849, the Express of London noted

Under the shadow of the White Horse, in one of the pleasantest valleys of Wiltshire, lies the little irregular town or village of Westbury. It is a place of small extent, no importance, and with but one attraction. As you turn into it the figure of the gigantic horse, cut out ages ago by our Saxon ancestors, in the down upon the chalky hill side, becomes startlingly visible.^[22]

Gough's claim that the horse commemorated the Battle of Ethandune was repeated in a booklet produced by a local printer, William Michael, in 1864.^[23]

By 1872, the horse was considered to have lost its shape, by the chalk repeatedly growing over and being re-cut. In November 1872 came an announcement in the Warminster Herald that a committee had been formed "for cleansing and remodelling the White Horse", and that subscriptions were invited.^[24] In 1873, the horse was remodelled, and at the same time substantial edging-stones were added all around the perimeter, to prevent the shape from changing again.^[25]

In 1924, the horse was used as inspiration for the design of the Litlington White Horse in East Sussex, which until 1983, when it was changed from a standing position to a prancing position, was visually similar to the Westbury horse.^[26]

In 1939, the horse was depicted by the artist Eric Ravilious in his watercolour paintings "Train Landscape" and "The Westbury Horse".^[27]

During the Second World War, the chalk of the horse was turfed over to prevent the Luftwaffe from using it for navigation.^[28] Nearby Westbury railway station was considered to be a potential target.

The horse was illuminated at night in 1900 and again in 1950, both times using British army equipment. For the 1950 event, which used searchlights, traffic in Westbury and Bratton almost came to a standstill as drivers slowed down to look.^[29]

In 1957 the horse was concreted over and painted white by Westbury Urban District Council, in an attempt to save on long-term maintenance costs, as the chalk of the face was eroding and unstable, due to the steepness of the slope.^[21] Since then, the concrete has tended to turn grey and deteriorate over time, requiring regular cleaning, as well as periodic repairs and repainting. The horse was thoroughly cleaned in 1993,^[30] and in 1995 the concrete facing from 1957 was replaced and repainted.^[21]

In 2003, the horse was vandalised when "Stop This War" was written in yellow across it in capital letters in protest of the Iraq War. After the words were removed, the horse was noticeably grey with a white horizontal strip where the message had been. In November 2006, the horse was repaired and repainted again. The newly whitened horse was illuminated on the night the repairs were finished, by Second World War searchlights, as in 1950.

In July 2010, the neck of the horse was vandalised when the word "wonkey" was written across it.^[31] This part of the neck had to be re-whitened in 2010, leading to the horse having a whiter neck than the rest of the body.

The BBC reported that the horse was to be cleaned again in 2012.^[32] Work began on 11 April 2012 and was completed on 19 April 2012. The cleaning coincided with the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.^[33] Celebrating the completion of the work, again the horse was lit up with searchlights.^[33]

Two visitor information signs, on the hill above the horse and in the viewing area car park, were placed in 1999 following the completion of Devizes White Horse; the signs show all eight Wiltshire White Horses. Also on the side of the hill is a toposcope dated 1968, mounted on a small stone structure, which identifies the towns and cities that can be seen from the hillside.^[34] For the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a fire beacon was placed to the side of the road on the top of the hill leading to the car park on 3 June 2002,^[35] that resembles the millennium beacons.^[36] It is lit to mark occasions such as the 70th anniversary of VE Day on 8 May 2015.^[37]

BBC News had a video in June 2018 showing the horse being cleaned with high pressure water jets by up to 18 volunteer abseilers.^[38] The cost was given as £3,000, paid for by Westbury Town Council. It stated that the previous clean was in 2016. In July 2023 the horse was cleaned, repainted and repaired again, with water used to clean off algae and dirt in a project funded by English Heritage.^[39][40] The cost was not made public, but the paint alone cost £25,000.^[40]

The Horse can be viewed from the west from up to 16–17 miles (26–27 km) away. From the Bratton Downs above the horse, Westbury and Trowbridge can be seen. The Mendip TV Mast on the Mendip Hills in Somerset can be seen clearly to the west, particularly at night. Two of the furthest views of the horse are said to be from Beckford's Tower in Bath and from the tower of St Michael's Church, Dundry near Bristol.

A car park on Bratton Road (B3098) which passes beneath the horse is known as Westbury White Horse Viewing Area.^[41] It has fifteen parking spaces and information boards on the horse.

For some 55 years, a 400-foot-tall (122 m) cement works chimney stood on lower ground about half a mile from the white horse and was the most prominent feature of the view from above it.^[42][43] Built in 1961 the factory and its chimney were last in use in 2010 and were demolished in 2016, to mixed views.^[44]

A Battle of Ethandun Memorial, consisting of a large sarsen stone and a metal commemorative plaque was unveiled on 5 November 2000 by Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath.^[45]

The White Horse was referenced in The Tontine (1955) by Thomas B. Costain, The Emigrants (1980) by George Lamming, and The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje, as the place where the sapper Kip learned how to deactivate bombs. Michael Morpurgo mentioned it as one of the inspirations for The Butterfly Lion.^[46]

The figure can be seen in the music video for Scottish guitarist Midge Ure's 1996 single "Breathe", as well as in the music video to the instrumental piece "The Journey" by the hammered dulcimer band Dulci Girls, and is featured in the current opening titles of the regional television news programme ITV News West Country. It was also seen in a 2015 Visit England advertisement produced in association with the England rugby team.

The horse lends its name to the White Horse Business Park outside Trowbridge and the White Horse Country Park outside Westbury, from both of which there are views of it. ^[47]

A mile to the north-east of the white horse is the valley of Luccombe, which has a locally famed "Blood Stone", said to be connected with the massacre of Danish prisoners after a battle.^[48]

Wiltshire folklore has it that when the nearby Bratton church clock strikes midnight, the white horse goes down to the Bridewell or Briddle Springs^{[note 1]} below the hill, to drink.^[49]

• Paragliding above Westbury White Horse (August 2007)
• An autumnal view of Westbury White Horse on the edge of Bratton Castle (October 2008)
• Viewed from near the edge of Bratton Downs before the surface treatment of 2007
• The horse in 2012, less than four years after restoration
• The Westbury White Horse as shown by Gough in 1806 (top) and as cut in 1778 (bottom), illustrated by Plenderleath
• Flag of the Electorate of Hanover, which may have inspired the creation of the horse soon after the Hanoverian dynasty came to the British throne
• The Battle of Ethandun Memorial

• List of hill figures in Wiltshire
• Cherhill White Horse
• Marlborough White Horse
• Litlington White Horse

Works cited

• 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 Archived 2 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine

• Plenderleath, Rev. W. C., The White Horses of the West of England (London: Allen & Storr, 1892)
• Clensy, David, Walking the White Horses: Wiltshire's White Horse Trail on Foot (2023)