Larger than life

Journey across the rolling hills of Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Dorset to see the bold, often baffling chalk figures that have divided historians for centuries

LUKE WATERSON

While there are chalk figures in other parts of the world, the swathe of grassy hills that stretch from Oxfordshire in the north-east to Dorset in the south-west are carved with the world’s oldest examples, and by far the greatest concentration of them too. The most famous, Oxfordshire’s Uffington White Horse and Dorset’s Cerne Abbas Giant, are icons of the English countryside. Yet the original purpose of these downland doodles has been very hard for historians to pin down. Adding to the mystery is that they have been created at various points throughout history: from 800 BC in the case of the most venerable, the Uffington White Horse, up until the turn of the 21st century, when the Devizes White Horse was carved. While stone circles had their heyday in…

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Britain (Digital) - 1 Issue, Mar/Apr 2025

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