Hackpen White Horse, Wiltshire

The Hackpen White Horse, a large chalk hill figure depicting a white horse, can be found on Hackpen Hill at the edge of the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire, England. Situated just two miles southeast of Broad Hinton, it is one of nine similar hill figures in the county. Often referred to as the Broad Hinton White Horse because of its proximity to the village, it is believed to have been carved by Henry Eatwell, a local parish clerk, in 1838 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s coronation. Measuring 90 feet (27m) wide and 90 feet (27m) high, the horse is regularly maintained and kept in good condition.

The horse’s beginnings are shrouded in mystery, with some claiming it to be the sole 19th-century white horse with scant historical background. According to popular belief, the horse was carved in 1838 by Henry Eatwell, a parish clerk from Broad Hinton, with help from a nearby pub landlord. It is rumored to have been created in honor of Queen Victoria’s coronation.

The horse was regularly cleaned and maintained, with John Wain undertaking the task single-handedly in either May or June 2000, spending approximately five hours on the job. Subsequently, he arranged for David Brewer to fly over the area to capture photographs of the village of Broad Hinton and the white horse for Brewer’s book Images of a Wiltshire Downland Village: Broad Hinton and Uffcott. Wain continued to clean the horse annually until Bevan Pope took on the task alone on 23 September 2004. Wain then enlisted a group of friends to help him clean the horse on 1 February 2011 and 4 February 2012, both times illuminating it once they had finished. While illuminating a white horse had been an occasional tradition for other horses in Wiltshire, these instances marked the first times it had been done for Hackpen White Horse.

In March 2009, the horse was transformed into a “red horse” for the Comic Relief charity’s Red Nose Day campaign; this was achieved by covering the horse’s shape with numerous red sheets and fabrics. The White Horse pub, located half a mile away in Winterbourne Bassett, features an illustration resembling the horse as its logo. The pub itself was named after the eight horses in Wiltshire.

Here is the second of 8 white horses that I am featuring here. I have already seen a few of them, and I take great pride in that. Each new horse I encounter motivates me to visit all of them.