Topic analysis

UK re-chalks Dorset's famed and feisty Cerne Abbas Giant

The UK's National Trust has begun its roughly decadal re-chalking of the Cerne Abbas Giant, a 55-meter tall late Saxon-era chalk hill figure in Dorset, using 17 tons of fresh chalk to restore its fading outline, which has been dulled by algae and eroded by heavier rainfall. The project follows a successful £300,000 public fundraising campaign supported by Stephen Fry that allowed the National Trust to purchase 130 hectares of surrounding land to protect the landmark and its archaeologically and ecologically significant landscape.