The Westbury White Horse (photo), / Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK
The horse in Anglo-Saxon mythology is an extremely significant symbol
'Horsa' - from which we derive the modern word 'horse' - was the semi-mythological leader of the Anglo-Saxons who landed near Ebbsfleet, on the Isle of Thanet in the 6th century and so the white horse became the symbol of Kent.
In ancient times these figures would be made by revealing the underlying chalk.
Mambrino, 1779 (oil on panel), Stubbs, George (1724-1806) / Private Collection
The Pink Jockey (oil on panel), Munnings, Sir Alfred (1878-1959) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA
Many people who are unfamiliar with horses call grey horses ‘white’. Most of the famous ‘white’ horses that we think of were in fact greys. For example, Naploeon’s favourite mount, Marengoand the most loved racehorse of recent years, Desert Orchid
Voyage, 2005 by Le Brun, Christopher (b.1951) / Private Collection
Another nominee for the South of England landmark was Christoper Le Brun
Although he was proposing a giant wing design, it is notable that the horse has become his hall-mark in large-scale paintings that contain semi-recognisable features, borrowed from classicism, symbolism, romanticism, and abstract-expressionism, among other sources
Please click here to go through to a lightbox of over 50 images of the mighty beast