HISTORY documents that the White Horse at Osmington was cut into the hillside in 1808 to commemorate Royal visits to Weymouth and the prosperity they brought.

But Looking Back reader Jonathan Harwood has been in touch because he has come across materials that suggest that may not be the case.

Jonathan, of Weymouth, writes: "I have been reading the diary of Elizabeth Pearce, published in a book entitled Old Portland in 1983. Her entry for October 1806, describing a walk that she took to the Verne on Portland, where she lived, reads: "I could see Fleet Water too: a long smooth arm, looking as though it never could be ruffled in fury. And then my eyes turned slowly round, from the Nothe to Preston Hill, to King George, our Royal Manor's Lord, God bless him, clean-cut and clear in the chalk, standing out from the bright green bed of turfs.

"I wondered when and how came about the cutting of the horse, on which the Frenchmen had set our king. I have heard that there are other horses cut on the hills inland, and that no man can rightly say their history; 'tis all so long ago, in the times of the ancients."

If Elizabeth Pearce's diary is to be believed then the horse is much older than documented.

Jonathan asks: "I wonder if the Frenchmen she refers to were Napoleonic prisoners of war? She is clearly saying that the horse was already there and that she has no idea when or why it was cut."