Hackpen White Horse

Hackpen White Horse is a chalk hill figure of a white horse on Hackpen Hill, located below The Ridgeway on the edge of the Marlborough Downs, two miles south east of Broad Hinton, Wiltshire, England. It is one of nine white horse hill figures located in Wiltshire. It is also known as the Broad Hinton White Horse due to its near location to Broad Hinton. Supposedly cut by local parish clerk Henry Eatwell in 1838 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria, the horse is 90' square feet and is said to be best viewed from B4041 road. The horse is regularly scoured and maintained.

The origin of the horse is uncertain, and is sometimes said to be the only 19th century white horse to have little of its history known. It is generally regarded that the horse was cut in 1838 by Henry Eatwell, a parish clerk of Broad Hinton, assisted by a local pub landlord. It is said to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria.

The horse is cut of chalk, is 90' square feet, making it the only square-dimension horse in England, and faces WNW. Although the hill it resides on, Hackpen Hill, is high (600'), it is a gentle slope, especially when compared to the hills of most other Wiltshire horses. Because the hill is slope, the horse is partly banked up and slightly raised from the surrounding grass to make it more easily visible. The head was initially elevated to help with the foreshortening. The best view of the horse is said to be from the nearby B4041 road, whilst the A361 road near Broad Hinton also provides a clear view. Alterna

At the top of the hill is a car park where the Ridgeway crosses the B4041 road, and a footpath stretches from there down to the horse, making the horse accessible to the public. Ironically, many real horses often roam the field. It has been suggested that the stones for Stonehenge and Avebury may have come from a field of sarsen stones just to the south east of its location. The expression "as different as chalk and cheese" is sometimes believed to refer to the land divided by Hackpen Hill. The hill forms the boundary between the high chalk downs to the south of it and the clay cattle country to the north, where cheese is a product of the milk from the cattle, so the two areas "are as different as chalk and cheese." Hackpen White Horse was not the only hillside shape cut to commemorate Queen Victoria; in 1887, for her Golden Jubilee, a hillside row of trees were planted in the shape of a "V" in Westmeston, Sussex.

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