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Conservation and camouflage of the White Horse of Kilburn, North Yorkshire: an air photographic story

Tara-Jane Sutcliffe

Introduction
Figure 1
Figure 1. Vertical aerial photography taken May 1940, which clearly reveals the White Horse of Kilburn (RAF/10/UK/1524 6382 03-MAY-1940 © English Heritage (NMR) RAF Photography).
Click to enlarge.

Historic aerial photography has the potential to access hidden, transient and now destroyed aspects of the past. The diachronic perspective — afforded by twentieth and twenty-first century airborne imagery — enables the interpreter to identify and record the changing condition of historic assets that potentially date from the Neolithic through to the present day. Herein lies the value of air photo interpretation for conservation and management of the historic environment, providing rapid cost-effective base-line information for planners, curators and the public. This lies at the heart of English Heritage's National Mapping Programme (NMP), which has now been completed for over 40 percent of England (Horne 2009). One of the latest projects to be undertaken is the North York Moors National Park NMP, a partnership between English Heritage and the North York Moors National Park Authority, which is led by Archaeological Research Services Ltd.

The White Horse of Kilburn has been examined as part of this project. Spanning the period 1940-2009, the historic aerial photography of the monument reveals a captivating story of conservation and camouflage of this prominent landmark. Over time it has been ravaged by storms, neglected, defaced by protestors, camouflaged in order to impede enemy navigation during the Second World War and repeatedly repaired. As a result the form has gradually modified from a White Horse into a grey mare. The monument offers a case study on the conservation and management of the historic environment, demonstrating the value of repeated aerial photography.

The White Horse of Kilburn

The White Horse of Kilburn is reputed to be the largest and most northern hill figure in Britain. With a surface area of just over an acre it is visible from over 20 miles away. The monument was created in 1857 on the initiative of local businessman Thomas Taylor and with the help of school master John Hodgson and his pupils, as a folly to emulate a prehistoric hill figure. As with the White Horse of Uffington in Oxfordshire, the Kilburn horse is displayed on the face of an Iron Age hillfort (Oswald & Pearson 2001), and its recent history offers interesting analogies for the construction and maintenance of the more ancient figures.

Figure 2
Figure 2. This oblique shot taken in August 1940 shows that camouflage is underway with the head of the White Horse already obscured (MSO 31067/O-R27 SE 5181/15 24-AUG-1940 © English Heritage (NMR) RAF Photography).
Click to enlarge.

Cut into bedrock and white-washed, the horse requires regular grooming in order to maintain its form and visibility. Over its life the horse has suffered the effects of repeated storm damage, notably in 1896 and 1949, along with erosion from weathering and impairment through algae and vegetation growth, requiring renewal of the lime wash every few years. During his lifetime Taylor bore these costs; however, no endowment was made and public funds were required to maintain the horse after his death. By the early years of the twentieth century the monument had fallen into disrepair, particularly during the years after the First World War. In response, a restoration fund was subscribed by the readers of the Yorkshire Evening Post in 1925. Responsibility has since passed to the White Horse Association, which continues to receive funds from the public as well as national bodies including English Heritage. The horse was most recently restored in August 2010.

Roulston Scar, the promontory onto which the White Horse is inscribed, is also home to the Yorkshire Gliding Club, the oldest in England, founded in 1933. The terms of peace following the First World War forbade Germany an air force, but resourceful pilots trained with gliders as and when opportunity arose. During the years leading up to the Second World War, the Yorkshire Gliding Club was used extensively for training by British and German pilots alike (Graham Lee pers. comm.). Roulston Scar with its emblematic hill figure was thus a well-known landmark for pilots, providing a navigation point located a mere 22 miles north of York. Military photography from 1940 reveals that a Second World War 'bombing decoy site' was located at Cold Kirby (NMR SE 5183/20 MSO 31067/O-R15 24-AUG-1940), a decoy for nearby RAF Dishforth. This dummy airfield marked out at a scale of approximately a third, with a complement of model aircraft and military buildings, was situated five miles to the north of the White Horse. But in order to maintain the ruse, the White Horse required camouflage.


Figure 3
Figure 3. By April 1945 the White Horse is clearly in a state of disrepair but no longer camouflaged (RAF 30276/PSFO-0086 SE 5181/18 30-APR-1945 © English Heritage (NMR) RAF Photography).
Click to enlarge.

It had been assumed that the monument was covered up from 1939 until 1946. However, the air photographic evidence provides a subtler chronology. A military vertical taken 3 May 1940 reveals the horse undiminished (Figure 1). By August 24 the head had become obscured (Figure 2), as a prelude to the covering of the whole monument. Pressing need for camouflage was brought by the Battle of Britain — the air campaign waged by the German Air Force with the aim of obtaining air superiority over the RAF — which occurred between August and September 1940. When the horse is again captured by military reconnaissance in April 1945, it is clearly in a state of disrepair rather than camouflage (Figure 3).

In 1946 the gracile features of the White Horse were restored to view and further work was required four years later, following storm damage. However, since recorded in an RAF vertical of 1950 (NMR RAF/541/565 4097 04-JUN-1950), the form of the horse has been dramatically modified. By 1972 an enlargement of the head and shortening of the legs had occurred, evidenced in a run of vertical photography taken by Meridian Air Maps Ltd (NMR MAL/72061 0154 16-JUL-1972). Restoration over the past thirty years has maintained this shape, which is evident in oblique photography captured by English Heritage aerial reconnaissance in 2003 (Figure 4) and the latest Google EarthTM imagery of 2009.

Figure 4
Figure 4. The White Horse of Kilburn in the twenty-first century (SE 5181/21 NMR 17768/27 05-FEB-2003 © English Heritage. NMR)
Click to enlarge.

More recently the monument has received camouflage of a different kind. In 1992, pranksters turned the horse into a zebra using rolls of black bin bags to create stripes. In 2002 a 'huntsman' was put in the saddle by pro-hunting lobbyists and in 2005 a jockey was placed on the horse by the Yorkshire Tourist Board to welcome Royal Ascot to York.

Conclusion

The site provides a striking example of how a much loved and prominent monument can change over time, sometimes dramatically and deliberately for specific needs, but also more gradually through well-intentioned attempts to preserve its appearance. Historic aerial photography provides an objective record of such change.

Acknowledgements

The North York Moors National Park NMP Project is funded by the Historic Environment Enabling Programme (HEEP).

References

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