Camera Talk

I had occasion to visit the White Horse of Westbury last week. Also called the Bratton White Horse, Westbury lies on the edge of the Bratton Downs in Wiltshire, England. The horse is carved into the side of a hill, atop which lies an Iron Age hill fort and earthworks. Said to date from the 1600's, there is however, no documentary or other evidence for the existence of a chalk horse at Westbury before 1742.

It is said to be the work of local villages in the 18th century, but I personally doubt this. The type of horse depicted is not the kind of horse that was common in those times - the Shire horses were commonly used for farming and for battle. This horse has many Arab features and has the legs of a horse bred for speed. I think that the original outline was laid down well before the 18th century. How long before? Somewhere around the 13th or 14th centuries or even earlier?

I used my Nikon D7100 with the 16.0-85.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 VR. I made ten vertical exposures and stitched the panorama in PS CS5 Photomerge.

This is a fascinating subject and a very well-executed photograph!

Indeed, beautiful landscape and intriguing subject. Maybe, besides the working horses, owners bred racing Arab types - was there betting on horses already on in the 1600s? I strongy suspect so.

Julio1fer wrote: Maybe, besides the working horses, owners bred racing Arab types - was there betting on horses already on in the 1600s? I strongy suspect so.

Maybe so, Julio, but surely not to the extent that whole village populations would create a representation such as this, which must have taken a lot of time and money. I can't imagine it being done for one wealthy horse racing individual without there being some historic archival record surviving. The churches were very particular on keeping records. Also, there are more than one of these horses on hillsides throughout the land. They are white because the underlying rock strata is chalk.

Wonderful photograph and fine work at stitching, Graham!

I saw that horse once, from a train (or a bus, maybe?) as it went by at some high rate of speed -- and from several miles away. Your photo is far better!

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Thank you, everyone, for your kind words.
Philip. I would guess that you were probably on the west coast train line, maybe going to or coming from Oxford or Bath.

Ahh, yes, Bath, I think.

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