64 White Horse Jottings. 
replied “Oh, yes, Madam, by all means, shells and all!” Mr. 
Gee’s horse appeared to me to enjoy the same security against injury 
causable by restoration as did Juvenal’s traveller against loss by 
robbers when his purse was already empty ! 
But now I must proceed to give you two or three short jottings 
which I have made with regard to the other horses of our county 
since I last addressed the Society upon the subject. The Broad 
Hinton horse I have discovered to have been cut in 1838, with a 
view of commemorating the coronation of our present Queen, and 
not three years earlier, as I had been previously informed. Its 
architect, Mr. Robert Eatwell, only died as recently as 1854. 
The name of the author of the Broadtown horse has also come 
to light, and with it a very remarkable theory of his as to the 
genesis of turf-horses generally, which is deserving of record. Mr. 
William Simmonds, who in 1864 was resident at Littleton Farm, 
cut it out in some of the grass-land attached to that property, but 
told my informant a few years ago that he never meant it to remain 
in its present size. His intention was, he said, to enlarge it by 
degrees, as that was the way that all horses were made! It certainly 
is the way in which Nature makes horses: but there do appear to be 
difficulties in the way of applying a similar rule to any turf figures, 
save rectilinear ones, which Mr. Simmonds does not seem to have 
contemplated. 
Another piece of information I have obtained which had previously 
eluded me in the most curious manner. I had long known that a 
horse had been cut out on Roundway Hill in the year 1845, but, 
although the date was so recent, I had never by any of my numerous 
enquiries been able to ascertain exactly where it was situated, or any 
of the circumstances of its construction. At last, about four or five 
years ago, I got a letter from a gentleman of the name of Barrey, 
then resident in Hampshire, informing me that this horse was cut 
by the shoemakers of Devizes at Whitsuntide, 1845, and that it 
was for years afterwards known as the “ Snob’s Horse.” The word 
snob, 1 may add, is used in more than one provincial dialect for a 
shoemaker’s journeyman, and appears in the form of suad in Lowland 
Scotch for an apprentice to that trade. It must, I have no doubt, 
