Saturday 17th August 2024
From the Facebook page of Bratton Silver Band:
What a fantastic day playing at the lost village of Imber at Imberbus day!
A steady stream of appreciative audiences throughout the day listening to a variety of music in the sun.
Notes from a leaflet available at the Warminster Hub, June 2023:
Westbury White Horse is the oldest of the Wiltshire horses. It is well situated, being high on a very steep slope and overlooking a panoramic view. It is on Westbury Hill, on the edge of the Bratton Downs, immediately below the Iron Age hill fort called Bratton Camp, north-east of Westbury and near to the villages of Bratton and Edington. There is a car park with a viewing point on the B3098 just east of Westbury, and a car park above the horse on Westbury Hill. Note that the lanes up onto the hill are steep and narrow, and are used by horses.
There has been a white horse on the site for at least three hundred years or so. It was apparently told by local people that the horse had first been cut in memory of persons still living or who had recently died, which suggests a date in the late sixteen hundreds. It was very different in design to the present one, and is perhaps Saxon or earlier in appearance. However, it could well have been a deliberate “mock-Saxon” pseudo-antique folly.
In 1778, a Mr. George Gee, who was steward to Lord Abingdon, had the horse re-cut to a design nearer to its present day appearance. He apparently felt that the older version was not a sufficiently good representation of a horse.
A century later the horse had become somewhat misshapen, and in 1873 it was restored according to the directions of a committee appointed for the purpose, and edging stones were added to help hold the chalk in place. The shape of the present horse dates from this restoration. In the early twentieth century, concrete was added to hold the edging stones in place. In the late nineteen-fifties, it was decided that it would considerably reduce the maintenance costs if the horse was covered in concrete. This work was carried out, and the concreting was repeated in 1995. Whether originally or at a later date, the concrete was painted white.
Wednesday 30th March 2016
Westbury White Horse Spring Clean ~ Climbing Supervisor Needed!
The Westbury White Horse is due for a long-awaited spring clean over the weekend of Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th April 2016. We have the equipment, we have volunteers (more are always welcome) and hopefully we will have some good weather. What we need though is a supervisor who is either a qualified climbing instructor (single pitch supervisor award) or who is qualified to supervise working at height in some other capacity, perhaps from construction or some other similar field. This is a condition that has been set by English Heritage, who will not let the work proceed without a qualified supervisor. If you can help or know somebody that might be able to help ‘save the day’ please get in touch with Verity Bartlett at Westbury Town Council, telephone: 01373 822232 email: verity.bartlett@westburytowncouncil.gov.uk
Tuesday 13th January 2015
Westbury White Horse
painted 1939 by Eric Ravilious
(22 July 1903 – 2 September 1942).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Ravilious
http://www.ericravilious.co.uk/
http://jamesrussellontheweb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/eric-ravilious-white-horses-of.html
Monday 16th June 2014
Aerial film of Westbury White Horse, Westbury, by W.J. Media.
Published Monday 16th June 2014.
On youtube, click on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g-UFsshIso
Produced by W.J. Media. http://www.wjmedia.co.uk
Westbury White Horse will be adorned with a 12 metre-wide poppy during the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal 2013.
Monday 28th January 2013
Michael Portillo, in one of his Great British Railway Journeys, shown on BBC2 at 6.30 p.m. today, travelled from Paddington to Warminster, in the first of five stages that will take him to Newton Abbot. His first port of call in Wiltshire was at Westbury.
Michael Portillo got off the train
at Westbury Railway Station.
Michael made his way up to Westbury White Horse,
a chalk figure carved in the escarpment
near the Bratton Castle Iron Age hill fort.
He was told by local people that the horse
commemorates the Battle of Ethandune
but its origins are obscure.
This lady said she lived in one of the villages
and she told Michael some information
about the horse.
Michael was also told how the horse used
to be cleaned in the past.
Michael abseiled down the monument
to help with the latest clean-up.
Afterwards, Michael caught a train to Warminster,
where he visited the Pound Street Malthouse.
Sunday 5th November 2000
The Ethandun Stone was unveiled at Bratton today (Sunday 5th November 2000).
1979
The Duke at Bratton is an Usher Brewery pub.
The Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) describes it:
“Comfortable, beamed bars and a busy restaurant.”
From The Visitors’ Guide To Wiltshire, circa 1973:
Above Westbury stands the oldest white horse [in Wiltshire].
It is said to have originally commemorated King Alfred’s victory over the Danes in the ninth century.
It was a carthorse until, in 1778, “a wretch by the name of Gee”, steward to Lord Abingdon, remodelled it – more elegantly he thought.
It is now 180 feet long and the height to the shoulder is 107 feet.
Originally, in each of the horses [in Wiltshire] there appear the sign of the Crescent Moon, which has no equine significance, so they may have all been modelled on a more primitive emblem.
