I used a line from this classic evocative poem which literally brings the white horses to life,  as a title in my Chargers on the Wiltshire Wold article. Charlies Tennyson Turner (1808-1879) was the second son from a family of 11 brothers and sisters and was rather overshadowed by his younger, more famous brother, Alfred Tennyson.

His father was a rector in Lincolnshire and he followed him into the church.  He took the surname ‘Turner’ on the death of a great uncle whose estate he inherited at Caistor, Lincolnshire.

As from the Dorset shore I travell’d home,
I saw the charger of the Wiltshire wold;
A far-seen figure, stately to behold,
Whose groom the shepherd is, the hoe his comb;
His wizard-spell even sober daylight own’d;
That night I dream’d him into living will;
He neigh’d – and straight, the chalk pour’d down the hill hill;
He shook himself and all beneath was stoned;
Hengist and Horsa shouted o’er my sleep,
Like fierce Achilles; while that storm-blanch’d horse
Sprang to the van of all the Saxon Force,
And push’d the Britons to the Western deep;
Then, dream-wise, as it were a thing of course,
He floated upwards, and regain’d the steep.