Layers of history (1)
The hillside figures of the chalk downs are some of England’s most memorable sights and testimony of the human need to make marks on the landscape on a large scale. This need has clearly existed for hundreds of years – though quite how many centuries no one really knows, as the origins of these figures are undocumented. There is a persistent story that this one near Westbury in Wiltshire was first cut to commemorate the Battle of Ethandun, the occasion when King Arthur defeated the Vikings in 878. The battle was probably fought near here at Edington, though the exact location is not certain. The chalk beast may originally have been a more stylized horse, like the wonderful one on the downs near Uffington. But the first written mentions of the Westbury horse are as recent as the 18th century – the creature is mentioned in 1742 and was recut in 1778 by George Gee, steward of Lord Abingdon.
The Westbury horse is in a dramatic hillside position and makes a stunning sight as one drives eastwards along the B3098 out of Westbury, the view I have tried to capture in my photograph by risking life and limb and standing in the middle of the road. This hillside is interesting for another reason – it forms the edge of an iron-age hill fort, the earthwork-bound Bratton Camp, which was occupied in the 250 years before the Romans invaded England. And this is a still more ancient site, because the hill also houses a Neolithic barrow some 2,000 years older than the hill fort.
So the horse at Westbury is an example of the tendency, common in England, to place structures or images of significance on or near ancient sites. This is hardly surprising when the ancients picked such good locations for their barrows and hill forts, of course. But it is interesting how often this historical layering of structures marks a continuity of occupation and significance going back over millennia.
Perhaps it only goes to emphasize the importance of the figure and its positioning that in he 1950s someone thought it right to replace the bare chalk with a layer of white concrete, eliminating the need for the figure to be constantly recut. Much as I’d like it to remain a true chalk figure, I’m also glad that, in its modified form, it is still there, reminding us of the past generations who lived on the hill and gave the area is enduring symbol.
