Uffington White Horse

Twenty years ago, The Friends of The Ridgeway published a pamphlet, Aspects of the Wessex Ridgeway, essays by various authors, illustrated by Beryl Maile of West Hendred. Some of the content is familiar polemic or pure description, but other articles and the line drawings it would be a pity to forget, so I intend to reprint selections from time to time. If anyone wants to update or expand the information, such contributions will be welcome. The first of these reprints draws on two essays by Joan Pye, "Uffington's White Horse" and the introductory "The Ridgeway faces an uncertain future".

The Uffington White Horse is one of the best known landmarks along the Ridgeway and attracts large numbers of visitors. When you arrive at the foot of White Horse Hill, you can scarcely see this great outstretched galloping figure, almost on the hilltop, 365 feet long with a body no more than ten feet wide at the widest point. Its head is very curiously shaped with a deep notched V between the ears and a square head with vestiges of beak--like jaws. Its tail continues in a fine sweeping curve from the end of its back, very long and thin: one would not call it a naturalistic representation of a horse.

Controversy has raged amongst archaeologists and antiquaries about the horse and its history. Lit has certainly given the name of White Horse Hill to the place where we now see it, for nine hundred years, because there is a documentary record.  One of the documents of Abingdon Abbey names the holder of the manor of Sparsholt at some time between 1072 and 1084 and places this manor "near the place which is commonly called White Horse Hill".

The first reference to regular cleansing of the horse to keep its shape occurs in the 17th century when we are told that inhabitants of local villages had an obligation "to repair and cleanse this landmark, or else in time it may turn green like the rest of the hill and be forgotten". A little later, in the early 18th century, Thomas Cox in his edition of "Britannia" wrote "the neighbouring parish have a custom, once a year, at or near Midsummer, to go and weed it in order to keep the Horse in shape and colour, and after the work is over they end the day in feasting and merriment". John Aubrey, one of the earliest antiquaries, thought that the White Horse had been made by the Saxon leader Hengist, but this assertion simply rests on a tradition that Hengist 's standard was a white horse, and Aubrey can have had no other information. The common belief in the 18th century, which is repeated many times in descriptions of this part of the country, is that Alfred caused the horse to be cut, as a memorial of his victory over the Danes at the battle of Ashdown in 87L This tradition, for which there is no real evidence, may well have started with a local clergyman, the Rev. Francis Wise, who was one of the first people to record the shape and appearance of the horse in a letter dated 1738.

If there is no reliable written evidence to help to discover the origin of the White Horse, and from a chalk--cut figure we shall find no objects like pottery sherds or coins to help us to date it, what other methods can we use? Only the physical appearance of the Horse, which as we have seen is a very unusual one, not very naturalistic as a representation of a horse. Horses were very important to the early tribes who lived in this part of Britain before the Romans came; they were used for transport and to draw chariots in warfare, as Caesar records. In the first century B.C. the Celtic tribes in Britain had started to use coins for trading, and some Celtic coins have horses on them with heads not unlike those of our chalk--cut horse with beaked jaws. There are also some surviving metal buckets from the Iron Age with a design of prancing horses, though the horses on the bucket carry their tails in quite a different fashion.

But what if the original design of the horse looked quite different from the slim, elegant animal we see today? The Rev. Francis Wise in his letter to a fellow antiquary in 1738 pointed out that "the White Horse is gotten higher upon the hill than formerly". It has been demonstrated within the period that the Horse has been in the guardianship of the Department of Environment that if a cleared surface of chalk on a hill slope is neglected and not cleaned at regular and frequent intervals, the rain will wash bits of soil and debris down the chalk surface, and the grass will very soon spread upwards into this lower line of wash--down. The conservation staff working for the Department of Environment had to clear out a sizeable area at the tip of the Horse's tail because it had completely grassed over. If this could happen in only a few years, what changes have taken place in the hundreds of years since the first cutting? A telling photograph taken by the R.A.F. in 1929 shows the impressions on the grass, body of the horse, of green turf lines like defining the outline of the horse's belly at a much lower level than now. If this is reliable (and cameras cannot lie) it undermines any attempt to date the horse by its present curious appearance.

The following extract from "The Scouring of the White Horse" by Thomas Hughes (first published in 1858) shows that conflict of use between antiquarian or conservation interests, and the interests of the farmers, is over 100 years old:

"This road which we are upon is the Ridgeway, one of the oldest roads in England. How far it once extended or who made it, no man knows; but you may trace it there along the ridge of the downs as far as you can see, and in fact there are still some 60 miles of it left. But they won't be left long I fear, Sir, in this age which venerates nothing.

"I don't see much fear of that, Sir", said I, "After it has lasted so long already."
"No fear, Sir?" said he, "why, miles of it have been ploughed up within my memory. God meant these downs, Sir, for sheep--walks, and so our fathers left them: but within the last 20 years would--be wise men have found that they will grow decent turnips and not very bad oats. Well, they plough them up, and find two inches of soil only, get one crop off them and spoil them for sheep. Next year, no crops. Then comes manure, manure, manure -- nothing but expense; not a turnip will trouble itself to grow bigger than a radish under a pennyworth of guano or bones. The wise men grumble and swear, but the downs are spoiled... They are all mad for ploughing, Sir, these blockhead farmers; why, half of them keep their sheep standing on boards all the year round. They would plough and grow mangold--wurzels on their father's graves. The tenth Legion, Sir, has probably marched along this road, Severus and Agricola have ridden along it, Sir; Augustine monks have carried the Cross along it. There is that in that old mound and ditch which the best oats and turnips in the world (if you could get them) can't replace. There are higher things in this world, Sir, than indifferent oats and d--d bad turnips."