37 
of very great antiquity. There is indeed a story referred to by 
Whitaker of a Mr. Wise who in 1742 visited the spot, and said 
he had heard that the White Horse had been made by the men of 
Westbury of recent times to celebrate the place where their town 
revels were held. But Mr. Wise seems to have placed little credit 
in that version, for he says “yet still I think it may deserve 
enquiry of others how the common people were so fortunate in 
the choice of their ground, and whether they have not preserved 
the tradition of some older horse, and some older tradition, now 
forgot.” And this is the view taken of the matter by Sir Richard 
Colt Hoare. 
The third argument is the situation of the fortified camp of 
Bratton Castle, just above the Battlefield—and the distance from 
Brixton Deverill or Egbright’stone—all agreeing admirably with 
the account of the battle in Asser and the Saxon Chronicle. 
The late Rev. Arthur Fane in a paper on Edington, in the 
“Wilts Archeological Magazine,” thus admirably describes its 
position. ‘The table land, which, dispersed in several groups, is 
called by the common name of Salisbury Plain, terminates from 
Westbury to the high road hanging over Earlstoke, in a series of 
ramparts of turf, which stand out against the Vale of Pewsey 
with the sheer massiveness of a fortified town. At no point 
does the upper plain rise more abruptly than where the down 
lands, forming a bason in which the little hamlet of Bratton 
is placed, sweep round to the north westward, and rise up almost 
perpendicularly from the vale of Pewsey below. Close under this 
natural rampart, a rich fringing of gigantic Elms and Walnuts 
surrounds the village of Edington, whose magnificent old Church 
startles the passer by with its almost Cathedral proportions and 
its rich outline of Pinnacle, Battlement and Tower. 
Britton says the camp is of irregular form, humouring the slope 
of the hill. On one side, where the approach is easy, it is 
defended by double ramparts thirty-six feet high and a large 
out-work. The latter appears like a detached camp. On the 
