White Horse, the name applied to a figure of a horse on a hillside, formed by removing the turf so as to show the underlying chalk. Most of these figures are in Wiltshire, but Berkshire possesses the most famous of them all, that at Uffington, 4 miles SE. of Shrivenham. It measures 355 feet from nose to tail, and 120 from ear to heel; is traditionally supposed to commemorate Alfred the Great's victory of Ashdown (871); is mentioned about the reign of Henry II. as existing prior to 1084; and has been periodically 'scoured'—fourteen times between 1755 and 1857, and then not till 1884. The next most famous White Horse, that on Bratton Hill, near Westbury, is likewise said to commemorate a victory of Alfred's, that of Ethandun (878). It originally measured 100 by 54 feet, but now is 175 by 107, having been recut in 1778 and 1853. Other White Horses are those of Cherhill (1780; 129 × 142 feet), Marlborough (1804; renewed 1873; 62 × 47 feet), Pewsey (1812; 180 × 167 feet), Broad Hinton (1835; 90 × 90 feet), and Wootton Bassett (1864; 86 × 61 feet). Yorkshire has two White Horses, both modern—on Roulston Hill, near Northwaite, and the Hambleton Hills, near Thirsk; and on Mormond Hill, Aberdeenshire, are both a White Horse (18th century; 162 × 126 feet) and a stag (1870; 240 feet long). At Tysoe, Warwickshire, is a Red Horse (1461; 54 × 31 feet); near Weymouth is an equestrian figure of George III.; and similar figures of seeming antiquity are the Giant (180 feet long) on Trendle Hill, near Cerne-Abbas, Dorsetshire; the Long Man (240 × 148 feet) at Wilmington, Sussex, re-outlined in 1874; and the Cross (230 × 340 feet) at Whiteleaf, Bucks.
See the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath, The White Horses of the West of England (1885; new ed. 1892); Chambers's Book of Days, vol. ii. p. 778; and T. Hughes's Scouring of the White Horse (1858).