Cataloguing and packing the Westbury Heritage society collection for removal to its new home in the library has thrown up some fascinating artefacts, facts and figures.
The group report, “Among our hundreds of photographs of local scenes, are many of our most photographed landmark – the White Horse. So we thought it was a great time to look again at the history of our famous hill figure.
“Our earliest photograph is in sepia and shows a man walking along the road beneath the horse complete with top hat and his belongings in a bundle at the end of a stick. You can see the stooks in the field, and his shadow on the road. It is also interesting to see how the run off from the chalk of the horse led to its legs getting longer and longer!
“Another of our favourites dates from April 1932 and shows a farm worker harrowing the fields beneath the horse. It is particularly interesting because it has a caption. It reports “farming so far this year has been a more pleasurable occupation than it is generally owing to the abnormal lack of rain. Work is going forward without delay and sowing is being carried out earlier than usual”.
“The horse has taken many forms over the years. One of our photographs shows the hill….without the horse. Taken in wartime, the figure was camouflaged to prevent it being used as a navigational aid by enemy aircraft. After the war ended, local lads climbed the horse and removed the wire netting and bracken that had disguised the horse leaving it not white, not brown, not even piebald according to the local paper.
“The horse has undergone many changes…some topical …others a little cheeky. In August 1955 for instance, it was transformed from a mare to a stallion with the addition of an appendage that measured five foot by three foot! It was the work of local lads who later admitted they had done it “for a lark”. Their practical joke led to a court appearance where they were charged with defacing the monument and were fined. In fact no real damage had been caused. They had simply scraped loose chalk and dust from the body of the horse to enable the cheeky transformation.
“The horse suffered lots of other changes. It has become a unicorn, a zebra, an anti war protestor and even a prison inmate complete with ball and chain. The latter appeared when Westbury was facing a bid to site a prison on the outskirts of the town.
“The history of the horse’s origins are mysterious. Some say it was carved to mark Alfred’s victory over the Danes at Edington or Ethandune. Others have suggested it is pre-Christian like the famous Uffington white horse. Certainly it is the oldest of Wiltshire’s white horses.
“Keeping our famous landmark clean has been a perennial problem and frequent scouring seemed to be the only way to keep it free of lichen and undergrowth until it was given its controversial coating of concrete in 1957.
“In 1878 for instance, the figure was described as virtually obscured, and in 1898 a repair fund to restore the landmark was started by W H Laverton and won cash backing from Lord Ludlow and the Marquess of Bath.
“And in 1911 G K Chesterton penned a poem imagining the return of King Alfred to the white horse saying “when he came to White Horse Down, the great White Horse was grey”.
“Thankfully in the twenty first century, the town council and the community are committed to keeping our famous hill figure spruce and clean.”
