Alton Barnes White Horse

Alton Barnes White Horse is located on the southern, 35° slope of Milk Hill, also known locally as "Old Adam," the tallest hill in Wiltshire with a 295 metre high peak. The horse is sited on the ridge which connects Milk Hill to Walker's Hill, overlooking Pewsey Vale; the land is part of the Pewsey Down Nature Reserve. and the Adam's Grave long barrow. The chalk horse is 166 feet (51 metres) tall and 160 feet (49 metres) wide, and, to prevent foreshortening, is disproportionately tall. It is based on and is said to resemble the nearby Cherhill White Horse, although the Alton Barnes horse is slightly larger. It is possible the horse was bigger in the past, as Revd E.H.M. Sladen, measuring the horse in 1868 when he was the village's incumbent, claimed the horse was 180 feet high and 165 feet wide. Author Paul Newman describes the horse's appearance as distinctive, "with its docked tail and trotting stance." 1920s poet and essayist E.V. Lucas described the horse as having "a swan-like neck and penetrating eye." Over the years, the shape of the horse has been altered considerably, with its eye becoming larger, its neck becoming more thinned, the shape of its legs being improved and the addition of lips and ears, despite only an outline of ears being present in the horse's originally proposed design. ==Origins==

Alton Barnes White Horse was cut in 1812 on the instructions of one Robert Pile or Pyle, a tenant of Manor Farm, in the village of Alton Barnes. This may be the same Robert Pile who cut the original version of the nearby Pewsey White Horse in 1785, or perhaps his son, given that the Alton Barnes horse was created 27 years later. Selecting the southern slope of Milk Hill for the horse, Pile contacted a journeyman inn sign painter, John Thorne, also known as Jack the Painter, to design and cut the horse, and paid him an advance sum of £20. Pile and Thorne agreed that the white horse would be excavated to a depth of and subsequently packed with chalk rubble. Thorne provided Pile with a sketch of the proposed horse, sketched from the Honey Street canal bridge; it resembled Cherhill White Horse and its walking pose, except with ears which were only outlined with chalk. However, although Thorne was supposed to create the horse himself, he discreetly employed another man, Stanton St Bernard resident John Harvey, to do the turf-stripping and digging, and after Harvey had gone about his task and the horse's outline was clearly visible, Thorne ran away, taking his £20 advance with him. According to contrasting accounts, Pile either had to pay Harvey a similar sum to finish the work, or was left to complete the horse himself. Thorne was later caught and hanged for a series of crimes. According to Paul Newman, author of Lost Gods of Albion, Thorne's Bohemian background and mischievous intent when asked to cut the horse has cemented him as a unique figure within the history of hill figures: "Although one cannot applaud John Thorne for his less than scrupulous attitude towards the duties he had undertaken, he has enlivened the annals of turf-cutting by bringing to this eccentric art a low, Bohemian shiftiness, pleasantly at variance with the solid trustworthiness of the squires and local worthies so often encountered in the histories of these figures." ==Maintenance and scouring==

Having been scoured regularly since it was cut, Alton Barnes White Horse has been well looked after. As parish councillor Steve Hepworth, who worked on the project, explained, the helicopter was necessary as lorries were not allowed to transport chalk, because the horse stands "in the middle of a Site of Special Scientific Interest on a national nature reserve with European protection. Natural England controls the management of the land and as part of that management there is no vehicular access." Led by Rob Sutherland, the work was initially hampered by driving rain and high winds, but the scouring was completed with help from local school students and their parents. ==Modern history==

One of the best known white horse hill figures in Wiltshire, Alton Barnes White Horse "remains a prominent landmark visible from the Pewsey Vale," and has been described as being "well-loved." and another painted in 1996 by Graham Arnold which is housed in Wiltshire Museum. In the neighbouring village of Alton Priors, there is a sarsen stone with the design of Alton Barnes White Horse carved into it. better known as simply the White Horse Trail, which visits all eight of the canonical white horses in Wiltshire. Celebrations From 2001 to 2012, the white horse was annually illuminated every Winter Solstice by the Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group, typically on the actual day of the solstice (21 December), except in 2003 when it was not lit at all. This was achieved by a small group of people placing tea lights in jars and arranging them around the outline of the white horse. On 30 June 2012, in a temporary art installation by Dave Chadwick and Yorkshire-based art group pa-BOOM, Maria Bota, the organiser of the event, said "I came to the county four years ago and discovered these white horses scattered around the landscape - often in beautiful settings. What we want to do is put a bit of a spotlight on them and enable people to discover them and discover the landscape they're set in." Pranks and vandalism For April Fool's Day in 2003 and 2014, the horse was temporarily transformed into a zebra by pranksters, The horse was vandalised in March 2008 when pranksters added a penis to the horse, which, although amusing passing motorists, worried the landowner Tim Carson who scours the horse who was unsure if the damage would be permanent. A local newspaper described the vandalism as turning the horse "into a stallion," and described the horse as "having gained an extra 'limb'." ==See also==