From the road out of Thirsk, Sheila will have a perfect view of The Kilburn White Horse, a hill figure, cut into the side of Hill Bank in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. Said to be the largest hill figure in England (on Wikipedia - so, yes, it must be true), the White Horse is 318 feet wide and 220 feet tall, covering an area of 1.6 acres.
Built in 1857 by laying white limestone chips over the underlying sandstone rock, the Horse is visible from a great distance and once, when there was a clear day, it is said that the Horse could be seen 28 miles away in Leeds.
There are, apparently, some 60 hill figures dotted around Britain, 57 of which are in the south of England. Of the other three, two are (cut into granite) in Scotland and the other is The Kilburn White Horse, which came in at Number 4 in the Daily Telegraph’s list of The Top Ten British hill figures.
It is thought that many ancient hill figures have been lost but, of those surviving, possibly the best known is the White Horse of Uffington, which is also the oldest (Iron Age) and the longest (374 feet). The most recent, of course, is the White Horse at Cheriton, by the Channel Tunnel and the largest is The Whipsnade White Lion at 483 feet – installed in the 1930s as an advert for Whipsnade Zoo.
The next control point is at Pocklington, in 42 miles when Sheila will have completed 668 miles and will be 224 miles from the end of her journey.
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