A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE
A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE overlooks. This White Horse belongs to an extremely interesting class of gigantic hill-side figures, formed by cutting away the green turf so as to expose the white chalk beneath. Examples in the shape of horses, and others in the forms of human giants, and crosses, occur in Sussex, Dorset, Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Yorkshire. In the year 1738 the Rev. Francis Wise, B.D., published A letter to Dr. Mead concerning some antiquities in Berkshire, particularly showing that the White Horse, which gives name to the great Vale or Valley which it overlooks is a monument of the West Saxons, made in memory of a great Victory obtained over the Danes A.D. 871. The particular event to which this monument is referred by the writer is the Battle of Ashdown, but the evidence upon whi:h his opinion is founded is of a character which most antiquaries of the present day would regard as inconclusive and quite inadequate to prove the Anglo-Saxon origin of the White Horse. Wayland Smith's Cave, to which reference has been made in another part of this article, is considered by Mr. Wise to be of Danish origin. Mr. Wise's opinions did not by any means meet with the approval of his contemporaries, and he was attacked by a writer under the pseudonym ' Philalethes Rusticus ' in 1740, in a tract entitled The impertinence and imposture of modern antiquaries displayed; or a refutation of the Reverend Mr. Wise's letter to Dr. Mead concerning the White Horse, and other antiquities in Berkshire. An anonymous defence said to be from the pen of the Rev. George North was issued in 1741, and in the following year Mr. Wise published Further observations upon the White Horse and other antiquities in Berkshire, etc. The subject of this extremely interesting class of ancient monu- ments of which the Uffington White Horse is the best-known example in the kingdom has, therefore, exercised the minds of antiquaries for a good many years. The fashion among antiquaries of the eighteenth century was to assign them to the Anglo-Saxon period, although the evidence upon which such an assumption was based does not at the present time seem at all clear. The Uffington White Horse itself perhaps furnishes the strongest clue as to the period to which the turf- monuments of England should be assigned. Of the six or seven monuments of this kind representing horses, that at Uffington is probably nearest to the original form ; most, if not all, of the others having been much modified in recent times; whilst some of them are possibly of entirely recent date. The Uffington White Horse, therefore, has a special value of its own. Upon compar- ing its attenuated and disjointed form with those represented on ancient British coins one cannot fail to be struck by the resemblance. Indeed, the similarity of general form is so marked as to form a strong reason for assigning the group of turf or hill-side monuments to which the White Horse at Uffington belongs to the period when the ancient British coins were in vogue. The form of the figure will best be appreciated from the accompanying diagram which is the result of an actual survey. 190
