A few years ago, I spent a couple of hours bashing an ancient monument with a hammer, and there’s a chance to do it again.
The Uffington White Horse, an iron-age era hill figure formed from deep trenches cut into the Oxfordshire countryside and filled with white chalk needs to be topped up to keep it fresh and white by re-chalking each year.
You’ll be given a hammer and a bucket of chalk and asked to bash the chalk into the monument to give it a fresh clean look.
An hour or so sitting on the grassy slopes, chatting away and bashing an ancient monument with hammers. What a curiously perfect way to spend some time. It’s also oddly very very relaxing, the tap-tapping away at the chalk to create that perfect porcelain surface as all the worries of the weeks fade away.
This year, the chalking will take place on Sunday 28th August, and you just need to turn up expecting to do something a bit unusual.
The chalking is available every 1/2 hour from 10am to 4pm.
Details are here.
Tom Scott also turned up for a bit of a bash.
Getting to the Uffington White Horse
If coming by car, there’s a pay car park at the White Horse.
If coming by public transport, then erm, ahh, this is rural lands and buses don’t run on Sundays anywhere near the White Horse.
