Hackpen White Horse facts for kids
The Hackpen White Horse is a giant white horse shape carved into a hillside. It's a type of hill figure made from chalk on Hackpen Hill in Wiltshire, England. You can find it near The Ridgeway and the Marlborough Downs, about two miles southeast of Broad Hinton.
This horse is one of nine white horse figures found in Wiltshire. People sometimes call it the Broad Hinton White Horse because it's so close to the village of Broad Hinton. It's believed that a local church official named Henry Eatwell created the horse in 1838. He supposedly made it to celebrate the coronation of Queen Victoria, when she became queen. The horse is about 90 square feet (8.4 m2) in size. People regularly clean and look after the horse to keep it visible.
How the Hackpen Horse Began
The exact story of how the Hackpen White Horse started isn't fully known. It's one of the few 19th-century white horses whose history is a bit of a mystery.
Most people believe that Henry Eatwell, a parish clerk from Broad Hinton, carved the horse in 1838. He had help from a local pub owner. The carving was meant to celebrate the special event of Queen Victoria's coronation.
What the Horse Looks Like and Where It Is
The Hackpen White Horse is carved out of chalk. It measures 90 square feet (8.4 m2), which makes it the only horse shape in England that is perfectly square. It faces towards the west-northwest.
Hackpen Hill is quite high, about 600 feet (180 m) tall. However, the slope where the horse is carved is gentle. Because of this gentle slope, parts of the horse are built up slightly from the ground. This helps make it easier to see. The horse's head was also raised a bit to make it look right from a distance.
Many people say the best place to see the horse is from the nearby B4041 road. The A361 road near Broad Hinton also offers a good view.
At the top of the hill, there's a car park where the Ridgeway path crosses the B4041 road. A footpath goes from there down to the horse, so people can visit it. It's funny, but real horses often graze in the field around the white horse!
Some people think that the large stones used for famous ancient sites like Stonehenge and Avebury might have come from a field of sarsen stones located just southeast of the horse.
The saying "as different as chalk and cheese" is sometimes linked to Hackpen Hill. The hill divides two very different types of land. To the south, there are high chalk hills. To the north, there's clay land where cattle are raised and cheese is made from their milk. So, the two areas are "as different as chalk and cheese."
The Hackpen White Horse wasn't the only hillside shape made to honor Queen Victoria. In 1887, for her Golden Jubilee (50 years as queen), a "V" shape was planted with trees on a hillside in Westmeston, Sussex.
The Hackpen White Horse is tied with the Broad Town White Horse for being the closest white horse to the town of Swindon.
Cleaning and Modern History
The Hackpen White Horse is regularly scoured. This means it's cleaned and maintained to keep the chalk bright and clear.
In 2000, a person named John Wain cleaned the horse by himself. It took him about five hours. He later arranged for David Brewer to take photos of the horse and the village for Brewer's book, Images of a Wiltshire Downland Village: Broad Hinton and Uffcott. John Wain cleaned the horse every year until Bevan Pope took over in 2004. John Wain returned to clean it again with friends in 2011 and 2012. After cleaning, they lit up the horse. While other white horses in Wiltshire have been lit up before, these were the first times for the Hackpen White Horse.
In March 2009, the horse was changed into a "red horse" for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day. This was done by covering the horse shape with many red sheets. The White Horse pub, which is about half a mile away in Winterbourne Bassett, uses a picture of the horse as its logo. The pub was named after the eight white horses in Wiltshire.
The horse has also appeared in different types of art. These include a stained glass window by Berry Stained Glass, an oil on canvas painting called The Hackpen White Horse by Benoit Philppe, and a silver necklace made by Daniel Pike in 2015.
In 2005, the horse was shown in an episode of the TV show Top Gear. In 2012, for a Pukka Pies advertisement on ITV, Pukka Pies changed a photo of the location. They put a hill figure of one of their pies instead of the horse!
