Folkestone White Horse
Encyclopedia
White Horse
- Mythology and symbolism :* White horse * White horse of Kent, a heraldic symbol- Coat colors :* Gray , most common white horse coat only becoming white at maturity* White , horse coat/skin mostly lacking in pigmentation...
hill figure
Hill figure
A hill figure is a large visual representation created by cutting into a steep hillside and revealing the underlying geology. It is a type of geoglyph usually designed to be seen from afar rather than above. In some cases trenches are dug and rubble made from material brighter than the natural...
, carved into Cheriton Hill
Cheriton Hill
Cheriton Hill is a hill near Folkestone in the south-east corner of the English county of Kent, overlooking the English Channel. The relatively low-lying hill is covered with farmland, villages, narrow lanes, and footpaths...
, Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, South East England
South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
. It overlooks the English terminal of the Channel Tunnel
Channel Tunnel
The Channel Tunnel is a undersea rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent in the United Kingdom with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is deep...
and was completed in June 2003.
The horse was planned as a Millennium Landmark to help regenerate the Folkestone area. The design for the horse was drawn by a local artist, Charlie Newington, inspired by a nearby Iron Age fort in an area known as Horse Hill dating from three millennia ago and also based on the White Horse of Uffington.
Planning permission for the project was first applied for in April 1998, with an illustrative canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
mockup being erected in August 1999. The project was opposed by the Government watchdog English Nature
English Nature
English Nature was the United Kingdom government agency that promoted the conservation of wildlife, geology and wild places throughout England between 1990 and 2006...
due to the site's importance as a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
. In 2000 English Nature appealed to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...
, although the project was said to have widespread public support by local MP and prominent politician Michael Howard
Michael Howard
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, QC, PC is a British politician, who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005...
. The project was supported by Shepway
Shepway
Shepway is a local government district in Kent, England. It includes the towns of Folkestone and Hythe and the Romney Marsh. It is named after the Jutish lathe of Shepway; the Royal Court of Shepway, which met near Lympne at a place called Shepway Cross, was the principal court of the Cinque Ports...
District Council, who adopted it as their corporate logo. Due to the opposition, the project went to a public enquiry in 2001. The project was given the go-ahead in March 2002 by Stephen Byers, then Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, who stated that the emotional and symbolic value of the project outweighed the possible environmental damage.
Construction of the horse began in September 2002. The work to build the horse was completed entirely by hand. Directed from afar by the artist via radio, a team of volunteers staked out a second canvas template of the horse, and following this, shallow trenches were then dug into the topsoil, 12–24 inches (30–60 cm) wide. These trenches would then be filled with limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
slabs. The entire figure is approximately 90 meters long, measured from the front to the rear hoof.
Both the Green Party
Green Party (UK)
The Green Party was a Green political party in the United Kingdom. It has been succeeded by three political parties:* the Green Party of England and Wales* the Green Party in Northern Ireland* the Scottish Green Party- PEOPLE, 1973–1975 :...
and Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...
appealed to the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
to stop the project based on the site's protection under the European Habitats Directive. In early May 2003 the EU issued a formal notice to the UK Government declaring the work illegal, and giving the government two months to either explain the 2001 enquiry decision satisfactorily, or restore the site, by which time the turf for the horse had already been cut and transplanted.
Over two weeks in May 2003 a team of volunteers including locally based Gurkha
Gurkha
Gurkha are people from Nepal who take their name from the Gorkha District. Gurkhas are best known for their history in the Indian Army's Gorkha regiments, the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas and the Nepalese Army. Gurkha units are closely associated with the kukri, a forward-curving Nepalese knife...
soldiers transported, cut and positioned limestone slabs in the trenches, fixing them in place with pins. The limestone laying phase of the construction, which had been delayed when the Gurkhas were needed to crew fire engines during the 2002–2003 Firemen's strike, was completed in early June 2003, with the formal notice from the EU outstanding.
In June 2004 The Friends of the Folkestone White Horse were formed, to promote the landmark and look after the site, which requires periodic light weeding. A time capsule
Time capsule
A time capsule is an historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians...
was buried on the site of the Horse on 18 June 2004.
See also
- Angel of the SouthAngel of the SouthThe White Horse at Ebbsfleet, formerly the Ebbsfleet Landmark, colloquially the Angel of the South, is a planned white horse statue to be built in the Ebbsfleet Valley in Kent, England...
, a standing white horse sculpture planned for Ebbsfleet, Kent - GigantotomyGigantotomyGigantotomy is the art of carving human-shaped hill figures, gigantic figures visible in chalk or other light-coloured material.Bergamar, Kate . Discovering Hill Figures. Pub. Shire. ISBN 0-7478-0345-5...
, the creation of human hill figures - Hill figures of England
- LeucippotomyLeucippotomyLeucippotomy is the art of carving white horses in chalk upland areas, particularly as practised in southern England. The practice is apparently of prehistoric origin; the Uffington White Horse, near The Ridgeway, has been dated to between 1400 and 600 BC. The Uffington White Horse is the most...
, the creation of equine hill figures - White horse of KentWhite horse of KentThe White horse of Kent, or the White Horse Rampant, is a symbol of Kent, a county in South East England.The figure of the prancing white horse can also be referred to as Invicta, which is the motto of Kent.-Origin:...
, the prancing white horse symbol of Kent