We need more chalk! Restoring the Cerne Abbas Giant
Boudicca FoxLeonard joins the volunteers preserving a notoriously prominent part of our landscape
The 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 neighbouring farm track.
“How are you bearing up?” asks Bill Holden, a National Trust volunteer 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 British landscape. Also known as the “Rude Man”, he has rather generous private parts. They, along with the rest of him, are getting a once-adecade 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 Salisbury 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, rangers 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, reedging 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.
His feet haven’t quite been finished, but today we’re pressing on; breaking and removing the top layer of greyworn 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 collapsed 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-chalking 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 volunteers 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 watching 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 corners. “This site is so important because it’s greatly loved by the community and the nation.”
It is also a scheduled ancient monument. 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 auctioned it off in 73 lots the year before. The National Trust also cares for Uffington 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 severed head? Have they disappeared?”
In the 18th century, antiquarian the Rev John Hutchins compiled a vast history 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.” Hutchins 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 November 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 inquiry and chaired by a QC, with expert archaeologists putting forward their arguments. Before the debate the audience were asked for their favoured theory and the majority voted for the prehistoric option. Afterwards, 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 private 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 importance. The rich chalk slopes are classified as Sites of Special Scientific Interest and the flowers of the rich calcareous grassland attract butterflies. 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.
‘He used to have a belly button, which got absorbed as he was made to look... greater’