Large and white.
January 31, 2009 10:09 AM   Subscribe

The Fovant badges, "an historic and unique cluster of military badges cut into the chalk hills of Wiltshire", are one of many hill figure sites in the UK. posted by Mitheral (4 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
The badges in their context on Google Maps.
posted by LVdB at 12:55 PM on January 31, 2009


My great aunt and uncle lived in Salisbury, so, when I was a kid, we'd drive past these things every so year or so. I thought they were kind of cool. I was very disappointed one year when I overheard my parents talking about them before we set off. I spent that whole trip, and most of the return journey staring out the window hoping to see one of the badgers my parents thought were so interesting.
posted by xchmp at 1:31 PM on January 31, 2009


Very interesting! I had no idea there were figures beyond the "Rude Man" and the Homer Simpson beside it.

I grew up in Missoula, Montana whose geological history was dominated by Glacial Lake Missoula. Instead of finding chalk a few inches down you would run into "glacial till", which was a real pain if you wanted to dig a hole deeper than about six inches...

Because of this, the mountain beside Missoula, Mount Sentinel, is largely grass covered instead of tree covered, as tree roots have a hard time penetrating into the rocky glacial till.

A different sort of hill figure, an "agriglyph" created more than 40 years ago, arose from this virgin canvas, and its result can still be seen today, albeit weakly.
posted by Tube at 4:19 PM on January 31, 2009


I've never seen symbols with fertilizer though I've heard about it as a way to get back at a neighbour, especially if they are of the perfect golf green like lawn type. A bag of 40-0-0 and a few minutes spelling out your message. If the guy is smart he'll vacuum the fertilizer up but most will instinctively attempt to wash the message away with water, especially if the message is "rude". That of course is the worst thing you could do.

I have seen letters written into golf fairways with roundup (or some other non selective herbicide). The course maintenance manager was not amused.
posted by Mitheral at 5:09 PM on February 1, 2009


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