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Joanna HolmanIn Bronze Age Britain, artists made a 100 metre long picture of a horse using trenches filled with chalk. For 3000 years people have regularly repaired the artwork, removing stray plants and topping up chalk. There’s something very beautiful about a chain of people with such wildly different experiences of the world preserving beauty and creativity across millenniums
BensGreenGamingAc@joannaholman “It ain’t what a horse is, it’s what a horse be.”
Sin Vega@joannaholman this is one thing I grudgingly love about old churches, especially cathedrals. It's a shame they're shackled to such abusive organisations (uk here ftr), but even then, the continuity, the changes and the lifetimes of work put into every part of them.
The fact that no one person could ever know all of it, simply because it's a little part of countless lives.
It's beautiful, and even the terrible parts of the history are, well, that's humans, too. That's part of its story.
esc key@sinvega @joannaholman The fact that we used to embark on collective projects that would not be finished in our lifetimes was lost somewhere along the way…
Peter Brown@joannaholman a considerably more elegant horse than the native breeds that were current in the Bronze Age!
arjjra@joannaholman what a coincidence that they made it on a hill called “White horse hill”!
Jon PENNYCOOK@arjjra @joannaholman also amazing that they named both the hill and the picture after the local pub (which has some great B&B rooms)
Martin's Pipe Dreams@joannaholman Terry Pratchett has a wonderful Hommage to it in his late Tiffany Aching novels.
Fabian ¯\_(ツ)_/¯@pipe_dreams @joannaholman When I read the post I immediately had a "oh THATs where He got the inspiration from"-moment
Meyltje ∞ 🍋 🏳️🌈@joannaholman I love it so much I had the horse tattooed on my arm.
Squozen 🇪🇺@meyltje now that’s a tattoo I could get behind.
@meyltje @joannaholman bigger than I was expecting!
@joannaholman Especially in this last century, as we can now see it with an aerial view and share an image 😉 😀
Mazz@1984@joannaholman Beautiful ❤️😊
Attie Grande@joannaholman Many years ago, I made a map of some of the White Horses with suggested parking locations... I planned to work my way through each one - I'm sure I missed more than one.
https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer?mid=1TS883dJwj1WhHoiDLSDVyvSkdkI
tautology@attie @joannaholman what about the ones outside Wiltshire such as the Kilburn White Horse (although that's only 150 years old). They need some love too.
@tautology @joannaholman Bit of a trek for me, but added - thanks!
Peejmaybe@tautology @attie @joannaholman I've driven all 9 before (and yep there are 9, not including ones that have sadly been left to grow over like the tiny Marborough White Horse. There's even a Red Horse not too far from Banbury called The Red Horse of Tysoe. I am a total nerd for these hill figures and am lucky enough to live about 30 mins away by car from the Uffington one
Gallorum
@joannaholman but was it actually a horse? Or was it a crocodile? https://mastodon.cloud/@DamnInteresting/116273912273554630
Damn Interesting (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image This crocodile ran like a greyhound across prehistoric Britain 200 million years ago https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260321012715.htm?utm_source=DamnInteresting
Ames@joannaholman I grew up withing spitting distance of this. It's beautiful.
John Autry
Aluminium Bromide@joannaholman I didn't know anything about it before your post, and now I've seen it twice today ! Turns out Paul Whitewick did his last video in the area, and Marie Warlow who I didn't know is preparing a video with him on the subject, yet to be published :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtSKTp5EtNRl8Sr5dTlJkSA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtSKTp5EtNRl8Sr5dTlJkSA
The Hippie Chick Historian
Take a look at interesting historical sites/books and traditions and hear about their history, mystery and folklore with historian The Hippie Historian. If you would like to donate to my channel you can use this link to my Ko-fi page where I'll br selling my folk art from in 2026 https://ko-fi.com/hippiechickhistorian
WesDym@joannaholman *millennia
Mark Connolly@joannaholman @SRLevine I learned about it when it appeared on the cover of the XTC album English Settlement. I suspect that was the case for others, too!
Icarosity@joannaholman When my friend took me there she brought apples and had me roll one down the hill toward its head. Probably frowned upon but she said her mother and she had always done it as tribute. At any rate she let me wander the place on my own then and I had the most extraordinary experience. And it sounds clichéd but when I went to download my pictures from there my SD card was blank.
LiquorVicar@joannaholman I used to cycle past it regularily when I lived in Oxford! Legend has it that Dragon Hill, just below the horse, is where St George slew the dragon.
EvilKiru 🇮🇸 he/him@joannaholman I first encountered this marvel in Forza Horizon 4.