This week we discovered a new video series courtesy of our local library. The title we viewed yesterday was Visions of England - more than an hour of aerial views of interesting sites and architecture of England. Beautiful music and interesting commentary nicely complement the breathtaking scenery (and the kids got a kick out of spotting the shadow of the helicopter on occasion), but we were especially grateful for the labels of famous sites that show up on screen. The video takes in lots of castles, gardens and famous sites (we particularly enjoyed the White Horse made famous by Chesterton in his great ballad) as well as a generous tour of London itself.
2 comments:
There are several white horses. Which one is authentic?
wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk
"There are or were at least twenty-four of these hill figures in Britain, with no less than thirteen being in Wiltshire, and another white horse, the oldest of them all, being just over the border in Oxfordshire. Most of the white horses are chalk hill carvings, and the chalk downs of central Wiltshire make it an ideal place for such figures.
Of the thirteen white horses known to have existed in Wiltshire, eight are still visible, and the others have either been lost completely, or are in a sense still there, under the turf, but have long since become grown over and are no longer visible.
Contrary to popular belief, most white horses are not of great antiquity. Only the Uffington white horse is of certain prehistoric origin, being some three thousand years old. Most of the others date from the last three hundred years or so, though the hillside white horse can be a slippery creature, and the origins of some are impossible to establish with any certainty."
The Uffington one, which was shown on the movie, is the one I understand to be referred to in The Ballad of the White Horse.
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