Photograph of a monument at Farley Mount, Farley Chamberlayne
Taken about 1870
This extraordinary monument in countryside three miles west of Winchester is dedicated to a horse, which is buried beneath it. In 1733 the horse with its rider leapt into a chalk pit twenty-five feet deep while fox hunting. The following year the master, Paulet St John, won a race on Worthy Downs, his horse being entered as 'Beware Chalk Pit'.
The manor of Farley was held by the St John family from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth century and Sir Paulet St John is buried in the church at Farley Chamberlayne.
The photograph was taken by Winchester photographer William Savage (1817-87) and is found in an album entitled 'Hampshire Views of Churches, Country Houses and Public Buildings'.
