Britain's largest chalk hill figure has spent over a thousand years staring out from the slopes of a Dorset hillside, and this May it needed more than a touch-up. In late May 2026, around 300 volunteers and National Trust staff descended on Giant Hill above the village of Cerne Abbas in southwest England to carry out the latest rechalking of the 55-metre-tall Cerne Abbas Giant one of the country's most recognisable and debated ancient monuments. The work involved hauling 17 tonnes of fresh chalk up a steep, unforgiving slope in temperatures that at points climbed above 30°C, and for the first time it was carried out using a new wet-chalk paste technique designed to make the material bond better and last longer against a hillside increasingly threatened by algae, erosion, and the growing unpredictability of British weather.
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