The Westbury White Horse or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately east of Westbury in Wiltshire, England. It is the oldest of eight white horses in Wiltshire, dating at least from the 18th century. It has been restored several times, and the work may have obliterated other white horse figures on the same slope. A small early 19th-century engraving shows a horse facing in the opposite direction. There is, however, no evidence for the existence of a chalk horse at Westbury before 1742, and it was reported then to have been created within living memory.
The horse is stated by the Wiltshire Victoria County History to be tall and long.Wiltshire Victoria County History, Vol. 8 (1965), pp. 139–148 It has been adopted as a symbol for the town of Westbury, appearing on welcome signs, and is also considered a symbol for Wiltshire as a whole.
Location and name The horse is on Westbury Hill, a steeply sloping hillside on the edge of the Bratton Downs, below the Iron Age hillfort called Bratton Castle, or Camp, and within clear sight of Westbury, but nearer to the village of Bratton. The horse is now just within the civil parish of Bratton, which was a tithing of the ancient parish of Westbury until 1894, when it became a separate civil parish."Westbury: Introduction", Victoria History of Wiltshire, Vol. 8, pp. 139-148 (University of London) accessed 31 January 2026
The name "Westbury White Horse" has earlier sources than "Bratton White Horse", including one in 1801, but the Bratton name has been in use since at least the 1850s."Warren's lecture on the Constitutional History of England" Wiltshire Independent, Thursday 24 November 1853, p. 3: "...was given to verbal description, by aid of drawings representing the county, Stonehenge, a Druid, a Romanised Briton, Old Sarum, the ancient stupendous structure at Avebury, a Serpent Temple, a bell barrow and a long barrow, the Bratton White Horse, and Salisbury Cathedral." In reporting on the dispute in 1934, the Wiltshire News wrote:
Origins
The Westbury or Bratton White Horse is the oldest of the Wiltshire chalk horses,"Wiltshire White Horses: The Westbury or Bratton white horse", wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk, undated, accessed 31 January 2026 and its origins are obscure.
The definitive Wiltshire Victoria County History, volume 8 (1965) notes that "There is no evidence for the existence of a horse here before the early 18th century."
The horse is sometimes said to commemorate King Alfred's victory at the Battle of Ethandun in 878, but there is no trace of such a legend before the 18th century. Since the early 20th century, historians have mostly located the battle at Edington, some two miles (3.2 km) away from the white horse, but this theory is still open to debate. In Alfred and the Great White Horse of Wiltshire (1939), the Downside Abbey monk Dom Illtyd Trethowan debunked the suggested connection of the Westbury White Horse with Alfred and the Battle of Ethandune.Illtyd Trethowan, 'Alfred and the Great White Horse of Wiltshire', in Downside Review vol. LVII (1939)
Another hillside chalk figure, the Uffington White Horse, is likely to have featured in King Alfred's early life, as he was born in the Vale of White Horse, not far from Uffington in Oxfordshire,Bernadette Sheridan, "Introduction", in G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse (Ignatius Press, 2014), pp. xv, xvi and the horse is now known from archaeological work to date from the Bronze Age,Timothy Darvill, Timothy, Prehistoric Britain from the Air (Cambridge University Press, 1996, ), p. 223 although it is not certain that it was originally intended to be a horse. Unlike the recorded history of the Westbury horse, documents as early as the 11th century refer to the "White Horse Hill" at Uffington ("mons albi equi").Uffington White Horse, Atlas Obscura, accessed 30 August 2025, archived 29 June 2017 A white horse war standard was associated with the continental Saxons in the Dark Ages. In his 17th-century work Monumenta Britannica, John Aubrey connected the Uffington horse with Hengist and Horsa, stating that "the White Horse was their Standard at the Conquest of Britain". Aubrey, a Wiltshireman who studied the county's antiquities, mentions no chalk figures in WiltshireJohn Fowles, ed., John Aubrey, Monumenta Britannica: Or, A Miscellany of British Antiquities, Volume 2 (Dorset Publishing Company, 1980), p. 820 even though he visited "Bratton Castle hill fort": he gives a good description of it, and a sketch which shows no chalk figure.Monumenta Britannica: Or, A Miscellany of British Antiquities, Volume 2 (1980), pp. 352–353
Bishop Edmund Gibson, who edited the edition of William Camden's Britannia of 1695, also says nothing of such a horse at Westbury. In his preface, Gibson identifies a local man, Thomas Tanner, as his main source: "The discoveries in Wiltshire depend upon the authority of Mr. Tanner, who has made considerable progress in the Antiquities of that County.""Preface to the Reader" (unpaginated) in Edmund Gibson, Camden's Britannia (1695) This was noted by Sir Henry Ellis in 1843"Mr, afterwards Bishop Gibson, to Dr. Arthur Charlett, of University College, Oxford. Preparing for a new edition of Camden’s Britannia", in Sir Henry Ellis, ed., Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries (Camden Society, 1843), pp. 214–215 and has been confirmed by later research.Thomas Roebuck, "Edmund Gibson's 1695 Britannia and Late-Seventeenth-Century British Antiquarian Scholarship" in Erudition and the Republic of Letters 5 (4), 2020, pp. 427-481; see footnotes 55, 62, 132, 137, and 142–145
During the 18th century, the White Horse of Hanover was a heraldic symbol associated with the new British royal family, the House of Hanover. Noting this, in 1904 Arthur Charles Fox-Davies wrote that "Everyone in this country is familiar with the expression "the white horse of Hanover".Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopaedia of Armory (London: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904), p. 141: "Gules, a horse argent... was the most prominent charge upon the inescutcheon or quartering of Hanover formerly borne with the Royal Arms. Everyone in this country is familiar with the expression "the white horse of Hanover". It is argued by some commentators that the Westbury White Horse may have been created in the early 18th century as a symbol of loyalty to the new Protestant reigning house."A short history of the Westbury White Horse", westburyheritagesociety.org.uk, undated, accessed 30 August 2025
The earliest mention of any chalk figure at Westbury is in a work by Francis Wise published at Oxford in 1742. He suggested a link with Alfred the Great for the Uffington horse, but not for the one at Westbury, having visited the town. He says of this horse:
This suggests at the earliest a late-seventeenth-century origin for the figure.Andrew Duxfield, The Unnatural Tragedy: Margaret Cavendish (University of Liverpool), p. 21
In "The Scouring of the White Horse Country" (Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 2005), Brian Edwards points out that ever since the 16th century, editions of Camden's Britannia had claimed that Edington in Wiltshire was the site of the Battle of Ethandun. While finding that the early 18th century probably saw the creation of the Westbury horse, Edwards suggests that it may have been cut then to commemorate the battle. This theory had been proposed in Tourist's Guide to Somersetshire, Rail and Road (1885), by Richard Nicholls Worth FGS:
In 1754, Richard Pococke visited Westbury and describes the horse:Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke (Camden Society, 1888), p. 38
A large map of Wiltshire by John Andrews and Andrew Dury, published in several sheets in 1773, shows a Westbury horse facing to the left, and with long legs, as in the case of the present horse.Elizabeth Crittall, ed., Andrews' and Dury's map of Wiltshire, 1773: a reduced facsimile (Wiltshire Record Society, 1952), Sheet no. 7 The map was published on 1 January 1773, so the image seems likely to date from about 1772.
Richard Gough edited Anecdotes of British Topography (1768) and says in it "There is another White Horse under Bratton castle, Wiltshire, of very modern make."Richard Gough, ed., Anecdotes of British Topography (1768), p 81 Some years later, he edited a new edition, British Topography (1780), and by then had changed his mind:Richard Gough, ed., British Topography, Vol. I (1780), p. 177
Gough went on to edit two editions of Camden's Britannia, published in 1789 and 1806, in which he took a more detailed interest in the two chalk horses. In his 1789 edition, he supports a connection between the Uffington horse and the Battle of Ashdown.Britannia: or, a chorographical description of the flourishing kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, enlarged by Richard Gough, Vol. I (1789), p. n459 He also says he surveyed the Westbury horse in 1772 and gives this description of it:
This gives a size smaller than the measurements of the present horse,Morris Marples, White Horses and Other Hill Figures (Country Life Ltd, 1949), p. 73 and Gough mentions no design or features, apart from the whole figure being hollowed out of the chalk. He adds that he disagrees with Wise, comparing the Westbury horse with the one at Uffington.
The Gee horse What may be the first mention of a redesign of the Westbury horse by a Mr Gee comes in Richard Harris's History of Westbury, written about 1823. Harris says the horse was "new modelled by a Mr Gee, when he surveyed the parish of Westbury for the Earl of Abingdon", assigning this to 1778; but in the same work he also says that the work was "executed by a Mr Gee who surveyed the Parish of Westbury in the year of 1788". Harris makes no suggestion that Gee was hired or paid by Abingdon for his work on the horse, instead saying of it "the expence ... was raised by Subscription by the Gentn. of the Parish in 1788".Richard Harris, History of Westbury (c. 1823, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre 540/320), p. 8 Richard Gee (1756–1811), a surveyor of Turvey, Bedfordshire, carried out survey work at Westbury for Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon, between September 1787 and May 1788, rendering an account for 480 days of work, for which he charged £230 17s 6d. (). Gee's account book survives and has its first entries in the year 1784.Account Book of Richard Gee 1784-1797 (Bedfordshire Record Office, Z1102/1)
The figures given by Gough for the survey he says he carried out in 1772 appear to show that there was a later increase in the height and length of the horse, by about sixty-five feet in each case, and this is ascribed to Gee. All authorities on the horse agree that a Mr Gee redesigned it, overlaying an older chalk figure which was smaller, resulting in something very like the present horse.
The Gough horse