Cerne Abbas

Cerne Abbas, village in Dorset, England, 16 km (10 mi) south of Sherborne and 13 km (8 mi) north of Dorchester. It is best known for the Cerne Abbas Giant, a 55-m (180-ft) long and 51-m (167-ft) wide figure cut into the turf to the underlying chalk on a hill north-east of the village. It is one of the largest hill figures in Britain, and—apart from the Long Man of Wilmington—the only representation of the human form. The Giant holds a 36.5-m (120-ft) club in its right hand; his graphically depicted reproductive organs earned him the nickname “rude giant”. The figure has traditionally been associated with fertility rites and was, until fairly recently, a centre of maypole celebrations.

There are several conflicting theories concerning the dating of the figure. Traditionally, it has been believed that the Giant is at least 1,500 years old; it was usually connected with the worship of the Greek hero, Hercules, which was brought to Britain by the Roman emperor Commodus in the 2nd century ad. Folklore traditions associate it with the story of a Danish giant who invaded England. However, apart from a tenuous remark in a 13th-century manuscript, there is no mention of the figure in medieval documents, and the first extant reference to it comes from 1751; therefore, some theories say that the Giant might have been cut as late as the 17th century. The Pitt-Rivers family presented the figure to the National Trust in 1920. It underwent general restorations in 1953, 1978, and 1993, and is cleaned annually.

The village of Cerne Abbas is also known for the ruins of its Benedictine abbey, founded in 987, and as the seat of the Notley family who, in the 17th century, established a home called Cerne Manor in the area that was later to become Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.