28 On the White Horses of Wiltshire. 



parish clerk there, to do the work, but went off with the £20 with- 

 out remunerating him. It is said that he perished at last with a 

 rope round his neck. The horse is represented in the act of trotting 

 towards Devizes. It can be seen from Old Sarum, a distance of 

 about 20 miles as the crow flies. The principal measurements are 

 as follows : Total height from the hoof to the tip of the ears, 180 

 feet, of which the foreleg is 72 feet, and the ear, 19 feet; extreme 

 length from the foreface inclusive of the tail, 165 feet, of which the 

 tail is 22 feet; a line round the tail is 70 feet; the depth of the 

 carcase towards the middle, 50 feet; length of hoof, 7 feet; cir- 

 cumference of the eye, 12 feet. The surface occupied by the horse 

 is 700 square yards. The horse has been twice scoured during my 

 twelve year's residence here, by subscription, the cost being about a 

 guinea on each occasion. Unfortunately on the last occasion, (now 

 two years ago) the workmen, to save time, opened a chalk pit just 

 over the horse, not realizing the result that after the excavation of 

 the chalk, the pit would appear like a large white space, viewed 

 from a distance. I have tried various expedients to obliterate the 

 spot, turfing and sowing grass seed, but hitherto with only partial 

 success.— E. H. M. Sladen, Alton Berners, Oct. 28, 1868.-" 



We have now come to the end of the White Horses of Wiltshire 

 and its neighbourhood. There are three other small figures of this 

 sort, one upon the downs in the parish of Winterbourn Bassett, on 

 the right side of the road, going to Marlborough, which was cut 

 out by Henry Eatwell, parish clerk of Broad Hinton, in the year 

 1835 ; another of Roundway Hill, near Devizes, made in 1845, but 

 now nearly, if not quite, obliterated; and the other at Broad Town, 

 near Wootton Bassett, of equally recent date, but I have not been 

 able to hear of any circumstances connected with their formation 

 which merit record. 



Before taking leave of you I may add that there are several other 

 White Horses in other parts of the country, none of which however, 

 pretend to any great antiquity. Rowe, in his Perambulations of 

 Dartmoor, p. 74 (ed. 1848), says, "White Horse Hill is a track of 

 high, healthy land, undistinguished by tors, ridges, or bold features, 

 but probably taking its name from large patches of the granite floor 



