The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014
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The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 THE KILEVA WHITE HORSE CHALLENGE 2014 In aid of Kileva Foundation By Joe Parkhurst & Cliff Evans 1 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 Contents 1. The Alton Barnes white horse ............................................................................. 3 2. The Broad Town white horse ............................................................................. 5 3. The Cherhill or Oldbury white horse ................................................................... 7 4. The new Devizes white horse ............................................................................. 9 5. The Hackpen or Broad Hinton or Winterbourne Bassett white horse ................ 11 6. The Marlborough or Preshute white horse ........................................................ 13 7. The new Pewsey white horse ........................................................................... 15 8. The Westbury or Bratton white horse ............................................................... 16 9. Challenge Calendar ........................................................................... 18 2 5 3 6 4 1 7 8 2 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 1. The Alton Barnes white horse Ordnance Survey grid reference: SU 106 637 This horse is a little under a mile north of the village of Alton Barnes, on a moderate slope on Milk Hill on the ridge that extends to Walker's Hill, to the west of the Alton Barnes to Lockeridge road. The originator was a Mr Robert Pile, of Manor Farm, Alton Barnes. He may have been the same man who was responsible for the first Pewsey horse, or possibly his son. In 1812 Mr Pile paid twenty pounds to a journeyman painter, John Thorne, also known as Jack the Painter, to design the white horse and have the work of cutting it carried out. Thorne designed the horse, then sub-contracted the excavation work to a John Harvey of Stanton St Bernard. Before the work was finished Thorne took off with the money, and Mr Pile was left to pay out again. Thorne was eventually hanged, but what crime that was for seems not to be recorded. Curiously, a John Thorne, known as Jack the Painter, was hanged in the dockyard at Portsmouth, Hampshire in 1776 for arson carried out there. Was this just coincidence? Was the Alton Barnes designer the son or other relative of the first, and took up the same trade and acquired the same nickname? Or is there some mistake over the dates? If anyone has any information about this I'd be pleased to receive it. 3 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 The horse seems to have been well looked after over the years, with fairly regular scouring. On one occasion, however, in 1866, the scourers dug a new chalk pit just above the horse, which created a white patch that spoiled the appearance for some time. In 2010 the horse underwent a major renovation overseen by landowner Tim Carson and Alton Barnes Parish Council, when 150 tons of fresh chalk were delivered to the site by helicopter, which volunteers then used to replenish the surface of the figure. The Alton Barnes white horse looks out over Pewsey Vale towards the new Pewsey horse, and can be seen for many miles. Perhaps the best views, though, are from Alton Barnes itself, and from the road from Alton Barnes to Lockeridge. The horse can be reached by footpaths from the Lockeridge road. There is a tradition of lighting the white horses to mark special occasions, and in recent times this horse was lit by candlelight at the winter solstices in 2001 and 2002, and then every year from 2004 to 2011. It was also lit on 30th June 2012, marking its 200th anniversary. You can find more information on this page. This horse will be lit again for the 2012 Winter Solstice - details can be found here. Curiously, in the nearby village of Alton Priors, there is a sarsen stone by the roadside which has a miniature replica of the Alton Barnes white horse carved on it. Milk Hill and nearby Tan Hill are the joint highest points in Wiltshire at 294 metres. There was also a white horse on Tan Hill, though this is no longer visible. 4 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 2. The Broad Town white horse Ordnance Survey grid reference: SU 098 783 Broad Town is three miles south of Wootton Bassett on the Marlborough road, and the white horse is in a depression on a steep slope half a mile north east of the village. It is on land which once belonged to Little Town Farm. According to Rev. Plenderleath, writing in 1885, it was cut in 1864 by a William Simmonds, who held the farm then. Simmonds claimed later that it had been his intention to enlarge the horse gradually over the years, but he had to give up the farm and so did not have the opportunity. It is difficult to imagine exactly what he had in mind; take a drawing of a horse and expand it by enlarging the outline, and the more one enlarges it the less the result resembles the original. There is another version of the origin of the Broad Town white horse, however. The Curator of the Imperial War Museum, in a newspaper interview in 1919, said that as a schoolboy in 1863 he had helped scour the horse, and that he had been told at that time that it was at least fifty years old then. If that is true, then William Simmonds may have scoured the horse in 1864, rather than cut it as he claimed. The horse suffered from neglect through much of its history, but in 1991 the Broad Town White Horse Restoration Society was formed, and they restored the horse and continue to regularly scour it. On my last visit in May 2004 the horse was in good condition. 5 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 Visible for many miles, the horse can be seen well from the village of Broad Town. The site can be reached by footpaths from the village, and from the road where it climbs Broad Town Hill just to the south of the village, though there are no parking places on Broad Town Hill. The steps below the horse are dangerous, and should not be used. 6 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 3. The Cherhill or Oldbury white horse Ordnance Survey grid reference: SU 049 696 The Cherhill white horse is the second oldest of the Wiltshire horses. It is situated on the edge of Cherhill Down, off the A4 Calne to Marlborough road just east of the village of Cherhill, and is just below the earthwork known as Oldbury Castle. Nearby is the obelisk known as the Lansdowne Monument. Very well placed high on a steep slope, the horse is easily visible from below and from a distance. It may well have been inspired by the Westbury horse, as it was cut in 1780, just two years after that first Wiltshire horse was recut to a new design. The Cherhill white horse is the work of a Dr Christopher Alsop of Calne, sometimes referred to as "the mad doctor". He is said to have directed the marking out of the horse from a distance, calling instructions through a megaphone. Dr Alsop's design for the horse may have been influenced by the work of his artist friend George Stubbs, famous for his paintings of horses and other animals. This white horse once had an unusual feature, a glass eye. The centre of the eye was formed from upturned bottles pressed into the ground to reflect the sunlight. Thus the eye apparently had a bright gleaming appearance, and was visible from a considerable distance. The bottles were supplied by a Farmer Angell and his wife. By the late nineteenth century, though, they no longer remained, perhaps taken as souvenirs. New bottles were set in position on at least one occasion. In the early nineteen seventies children on a youth centre project put new bottles in place, with their names inside them. Ultimately, however, they suffered the same fate as the originals. The present eye is of stone and concrete. 7 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 Mr John Shortland tells me that as a child in the nineteen fifties, he and his cousins used to use the body of the horse as a slide. They would hurtle down the steep chalk slope on trays or in sacks! The horse seems to have been well-maintained throughout its history, but in recent years had become rather dilapidated. A major restoration was carried out during August 2002, involving re-cutting the outline of the horse, fixing shuttering to hold the chalk in place, and resurfacing the horse with 160 tonnes of fresh chalk. The work was paid for by funds raised by the Cherhill White Horse Restoration Group. An "opening ceremony" took place on Sunday 8th September, attended by well over a hundred people. The horse can be seen well from the A4, and there are footpaths from that road up onto Cherhill Down. 8 The Kileva White Horse Challenge 2014 4. The new Devizes white horse Ordnance Survey grid reference: SU 016 641 This is the newest of the Wiltshire white horses. Designed by Peter Greed, it was cut by around two hundred local people in 1999 to mark the millennium. It is on Roundway Hill to the north of Devizes, overlooking the village of Roundway. This horse is the only one in Wiltshire, and one of only four in Britain, to face to the right. In 1954, pupils at Devizes Grammar school researched the old Devizes horse, and one of them, Peter Greed, drew up plans for re-creating it. Nothing came of that at the time, but years later, in 1998, Sarah Padwick, who had recently moved to Devizes and was unaware of the old horse, wrote to a local paper suggesting that a Devizes hill figure should be cut on Roundway Down to celebrate the millennium.