White Horse Two......Kilburn

I have always been fascinated by the white chalk horse figures on UK hillsides, and I keep sying I must go and visit them all. We have managed to see a few of them including the very unusual Uffington White Horse a few years ago, but it's not so easy when you don't live in the country.

But now we do, and the Wiltshire ones aren't far away at all, so we really must get on with it. However, as we were up in Yorkshire this weekend visiting friends we decided to go and check out the only White Horse in the north of England, at Kilburn, near Thirsk.

The Kilburn White Horse was cut in 1857, apparently by a local schoolteacher and his pupils and on a clear day can be seen from as far away as Leeds. Unfortunately for us, as it is often grim ooop north, we got wind and rain and fog - definitely not a clear day :-/

So, pictures on the web show me that the horse looks like this when viewed from the village:

When we got there, we could barely make out the side of the hill.

We  followed the signs to the car park below the horse, from where again the good old internet shows me you can see most of it:

I, however, only managed to get this less than edifying picture:

Ah well, at least we found it. Maybe we'll go back sometime when the weather is better! In the meantime, here is an aerial view of the horse by those brilliant photographers at Last Refuge

.....taken on a sunny day!

For more about the white chalk horses in the UK, I can recommend this site.

A tad damp here.....

So as you've no doubt seen on the news, we've had a bit of weather in SW England recently. Luckily we live on the side of a hill so no flooding here, although the horses' field is pretty soggy......but nothing as bad as these poor horses in Dorset, so mustn't complain.....

Despite the weather we've kept the troops ticking over, the girls have been out in hand, and the water is a handy training exercise for them!

Even got the old boy to trot through this lot the other morning - good job they put a sign up, eh? ;-)

I am a happy bunny as now I have a nice new phone with a very clever camera, I can do shots like these.....

Going to have fun with it taking pics of Ali jumping, she's got a first lesson booked at the local stables next week, watch this space.....