The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 1 September 2019^ *** 13
COUNTRY MATTERS
How I helped
to clean up a
giant figure in
British history
T
he left nipple on the
Cerne Abbas Giant
is looking a bit
grassy. A fellow
volunteer and I are
gamely hitting it
with a mattock and
shovelling the dirty
chalk rubble into a strong plastic
bag. It’s only about a quarter full
when I start the trudge up the slope
to empty it into a waiting
trailer which, when full, will be
tipped into the ruts of a neighbour-
ing farm track.
“How are you bearing up?” asks
Bill Holden, a National Trust volun-
teer to whom I’d chatted earlier. He’s
75, a retired chartered surveyor, and
impressively carrying his own load.
This is hot and sweaty, hard work.
The giant, in Dorset, is one of the
fruitier of chalk figures on the Brit-
ish landscape. Also known as the
“Rude Man”, he has rather generous
private parts. They, along with the
rest of him, are getting a once-a-
decade full body and face lift.
Arriving first thing in the morning
it was obvious to see why. From the
opposite hillside, you had to look
hard to make out the giant against
the surrounding grass. Ten years of
root growth had left the chalk of his
outline brown and indistinct.
Twenty tons of chalk have been
ordered from a quarry near Salis-
bury to make him gleam again. But
before that we need to prepare the
foundations.
Gathering at the top of the hillside
at 9.30am, 40 or so volunteers, rang-
ers and countryside managers, the
majority in red polo shirts, listen to
chief ranger Michael Clarke’s team
talk for the day.
The weather’s not looking great,
he observes, and if it rains, we’ll have
to finish early. Nobody wants to be
slip-sliding about on the hillside.
Clarke has looked after the site
for 26 years and this is his third
re-chalking.
Work started the day before, re-
edging the figure; taking off the
edges where soil has accumulated
so that the marks that delineate the
180ft-tall figure are much wider.
Under Clarke’s beady eye, no one
has managed to lop off too much of
this much-treasured national figure.Boudicca Fox-
Leonard joins the
volunteers preserving a
notoriously prominent
part of our landscape
His feet haven’t quite been finished,
but today we’re pressing on; breaking
and removing the top layer of grey-
worn chalk.
Most of the time, the giant is fairly
low maintenance. Sheep graze the site
in spring and autumn to keep him trim,
with Clarke and his team doing a bit
of strimming and maintenance of col-
lapsed edges. But it is seeds deposited
in the sheeps’ poo that encourage weed
growth within his lines.
“It doesn’t matter how much we
spray it, weeds always accumulate and
it gets to the point where we can’t keep
up,” Clarke explains. “And at that point
we have to take off that top layer.”
Tomorrow they hope the re-chalk-
ing can commence. About three layers
will be applied, each tightly rammed in
to bind top to bottom. A compactor
plate will be run over the whole area
once it’s finished to seal the work.
“If it doesn’t get rammed in properly,
the first rainstorm will make his feet
look like they’re crying,” says Clarke.
Ten days have been set aside for volun-
teers to complete the work.
There is always an element of risk to
re-chalking. It can take years for the
surface to settle. Clarke will be watch-JAY WILLIAMS FOR THE TELEGRAPHber 1694, citing the cost of repairs.
Still, it remains a topical subject in
the village.
Mike Clark, the current chairman
of the Cerne Abbas Society, recalls a
symposium that took place in the
village hall 20 years ago. It was
organised in the manner of a legal in-
quiry and chaired by a QC, with ex-
pert archaeologists putting forward
their arguments. Before the debate
the audience were asked for their fa-
voured theory and the majority
voted for the prehistoric option. Af-
terwards, though, they swung over
to the 1600s argument.
“I think the person arguing for the
1600s was just a much better speaker
though,” says Clark. He reckons
locals like the mystery, the enigma
only adding to the giant’s appeal.
But getting to the meat and veg of
the subject...
“The striking thing about his pri-
vate parts is that he used to have a
belly button, which got absorbed
over the years to make him look...
greater than he was originally,” says
Papworth with a grin.
The Cerne Abbas Giant is, in the
true sense of the word, iconic. But as
well as his cultural impact, and the
economic benefits he confers on the
community (the trust encourages
people to stop off in the charming
pubs and tea rooms of Cerne Abbas),
the site also has an ecological impor-
tance. The rich chalk slopes are clas-
sified as Sites of Special Scientific
Interest and the flowers of the rich
calc areous grassland attract butter-
flies. Duke of Burgundy, Adonis blue
and marsh fritillary butterflies all
thrive on the devil’s bit scabious,
knapweed and hawkbit goat’s beard
that grow around the figure.
At lunchtime the volunteers rest
among the wild flowers, eating cake
supplied by the Abbots tea room in
Cerne Abbas. The rain has held off
and tomorrow the chalk tamping can
commence. The giant continues to
hold a community together.BAGS OF
EFFORT
Boudicca
Fox-Leonard
sweeps and
carries rubbleing the hillside for weeks after this,
looking for rain-gouged holes that
need repairing.
Small wonder that other chalk sites
have been allowed to disappear, while
the Westbury White Horse near
Warminster, Wiltshire, is now depicted
in concrete.
“I think there would be an outcry if
we tried to cut corners,” says Martin
Papworth, the National Trust’s regional
archaeologist for the past 33 years, who- ironically – is here to help cut the cor-
ners. “This site is so important because
it’s greatly loved by the community and
the nation.”
It is also a scheduled ancient monu-
ment. The Cerne Abbas Giant has been
in the care of the National Trust for 99
years, donated by the Pitt-Rivers family
in 1920. The family had also owned the
village of Cerne Abbas until they auc-
tioned it off in 73 lots the year before.
The National Trust also cares for Uff-
ington White Horse in Oxfordshire, a
Bronze Age chalk image of a galloping
horse believed to be the oldest such
monument in Britain.
But just how ancient Cerne Abbas
man is a matter of some debate.
“There are lots and lots of theories,”
says Papworth. “Is he a Celtic god,
something to do with an Iron Age tribe?
Or might he be Roman, and of classical
origin? Hercules was typically pictured
like him, his arm outstretched with a
club. Was he carrying a cloak and a sev-
ered head? Have they disappeared?”
In the 18th century, antiquarian the
Rev John Hutchins compiled a vast his-
tory of Dorset, and interviewed many
villagers. According to Papworth, these
people said that the figure represented
“a great giant, who after stealing sheep
in the Blackmore Vale and eating them
lay down to rest. The villagers came up
while he was sleeping and killed him
and put an outline around him.” Hutch-
ins spoke to villagers in their 90s who
said that when they were little the
eldest members of the community
couldn’t remember it not being there.
“But then he went to the steward of
the local estate who said, ‘Ahh that’s a
modern thing. Lord Hollis had it done’.”
Lord Hollis had the estate from 1642
through to 1666 and there is a theory
that the giant is in fact a political
caricature of Oliver Cromwell, poking
fun at puritanism.
What isn’t in doubt is that the first
historical reference can be found in the
churchwardens’ accounts of Novem-
‘He used to have a belly
button, which got
absorbed as he was
made to look... greater’
GIANT
FACELIFT
Volunteers at work
on the giant’s head,
above, and the rest
of the figure, rightA BIG ASK
UFFINGTON
WHITE HORSE,
OXFORDSHIRE
Almost abstract
in appearance,
this equine
figure is around
3,000 years old.LONG MAN OF
WILMINGTON,
EAST SUSSEX
Britain’s only
other giant
human chalk
figure, probably
17th century,
carries two
walking staffs.OSMINGTON
WHITE HORSE,
DORSET
The combined
human/equinecarved in 1808
depicts George
III on his steed.BULFORD
KIWI,
WILTSHIRE
Oddly out-of-
place, this bird
(above) was cut
by New Zealand
soldiers waiting
to return home
after the First
World War.KILBURN
WHITE HORSE,
NORTH
YORKSHIRE
The largest and
most northerly
figure, inspired
by Uffington,
was cut in 1857.FIVE MORE BRITISH
CHALK LANDMARKS
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