83 
the nearest station to these interesting reliques of antiquity, which 
was punctually reached at 11.58. Taking the direct line for the 
’ White Horse, which gives its name to this Vale of Berkshire, the 
chalk down was mounted to its summit, 893 feet above sea level, 
and the trophy of victory by King Ethelred and his brother Alfred 
over the Danes commanded by King Bacseg in the year 871, 
scanned from close quarters. This heraldic beast, styled a horse, 
is supposed by antiquarians to have been cut in the chalk after 
this battle of Ashdown, but there are many who pooh pooh this 
theory, and consider this quaint figure to be the work of shepherds 
who, having noticed on the chalk slope the rude resemblance of a 
horse when tending their flocks, reduced it to a more perfect 
shape for amusement. If in truth it represents the banner of the 
Pagan Saxous, it must have been designed before the year 883, 
when King Alfred adopted for his standard the Christian Cross, 
having received from Pope Martin, as his biographer Asser 
Menevensis asserts, ‘‘a large portion of that most holy and most 
venerable Cross upon which our Lord was crucified for the 
universal salvation of men.” Formerly the tenants of certain 
lands in the neighbourhood of the White Horse were by their 
conditions of tenure obliged to cleanse and repair it, but the 
obligation is now void, and its periodical scouring is effected by 
the Dowager Countess of Craven, who lives at Ashdown park. 
In the vicinity of the White Horse are many tumuli of various 
shapes, supposed to cover the slaughtered Danes and their King 
Bacseg aud his Earls. A mile distant is a place called the Seven 
Barrows, though they are far more numerous, even now when the 
downs are under cultivation. Between White Horse hill and a 
Roman road, supposed to be the Icknield street, is a large barrow 
called Dragon hill, which Aubrey, the antiquarian, conjectured to 
be the burial place of Uter-Pendragon. About a mile from this 
barrow, in a copse, are three squarish stones, about, four or five 
feet in diameter, standing upright, supporting another of much 
larger dimensions. This structure is popularly known as Wayland 
