England's New White Horse Trail
Pseudo-Antique Horse Shapes Gallop Over Salisbury Plain
Wiltshire's gentle hills are lumpy with Bronze Age burial mounds and mysterious henges. Now, a new path loops among the eight nearly new horse carvings.
Two hours west of London, a 90-mile hiking and biking trail now wanders over beautiful Wiltshire countryside among ancient barrows and mysterious henges. The new path is designed to view eight, seemingly ancient, horse figures carved into the chalk hills from their best vangage point.
Surrounded by vast sweeps of ancient England out there on the Salisbury Plain: the World Heritage Sites of Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles, Silbury Hill, and hundreds of burial mounds and long barrows (148 of England's 260 total), this part of Wiltshire is of international importance for its prehistoric ritual landscape. As a result, it's easy to think the huge white horse shapes carved into the chalk hillsides and to which the path is dedicted are ancient and possibly mysterious too, but in fact the oldest was cut in 1778, the youngest in 2000. One of the eight was originally fitted with a bottle-glass eye, easily seen sparkling from a long way off; another was designed, cut, and happily cared for by a boy's school near Marlborough in the early 1800s. Subsequent classes liked to play cricket near it.
Not the Uffington White Horse
The oldest horse carving in England is not in Wiltshire at all, but near Uffington Castle, an Iron Age hill fort in Oxfordshire over the border. That 345-foot-long figure, thought to be a horse, is also thought to be Celtic, possibly 3000 years old. And it's beautiful. Spare of line and liquid of curve, it's carved in graceful sweeps by people who - it is stunningly evident - loved, maybe even worshipped horses. By comparison, the Wiltshire white horses are grafitti. Neither mysterious or venerable, instead, the flat-footed mares are more humorous, playful. Not mysterious at all, really. But, inspired by the Uffington horse, their charm is that they connect the people to their landscape of chalk downs, to their history, and to each other.
Start from the West Kennet Long Barrow
Start at the beginning of the Ridgeway, the oldest path in Britain, which is really saying something in a country webbed with Roman roads, drover trails, and holloways. The Ridgeway, first tramped upon in the Bronze Age, was a trading path wending the way to the Wash in Norfolk.
Start at the West Kennet car park on the A4 between Caine and Marlborough, both pretty little villages with inns and pubs. To set the tone, first cross the road to see the West Kennet long barrow. Cross back to the car park and up the Ridgeway, before branching left (west) about 1/4 mile along onto the White Horse Way being swallowed up by a beech grove and heading toward the obelisk in the distance (about 1.5 miles) above Avebury.
While there are good information boards, bring an OS map, the sign-post distances are misleading and vague. Also see the Wiltshire White Horse main page. For places to stay in Wiltshire, see their tourism site .
Sadly, there is no longer a bus to ferry walkers back to inns on this long loop, making a car nearly a must. The walk from Marlborough to West Kennet is about 4 miles on busy A4. Ninety miles of this relatively easy landscape can be walked comfortably in less than a week (13 miles/day) and can be easily planned, but White Horse Walking tours, though, will pick you up and drop you off anywhere along the path. Their business is at the foot of the Devizes white horse.
The White Horse Way: More Than White Horses
The Marlborough stretch of the trail is the most remote, wandering through wheat fields it winds through miles of open countryside disappearing into little groves of beech on the hilltops and down in the combes, bring water and a waterproof jacket in case of rain, and, even on a bright day, it's chilly.
These chalk downs are an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Rare chalk upland habitat supporting eqaully rare flowers like the snake's head fritillar and insects like the chalkhill blue butterfly. The walk is beautiful and thought-provoking.
