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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Cerne Giant
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(10km/6m N of Dorchester) Britain's best-known phallic image, on a hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset. This uncompromising figure of male virility is 55m/180ft tall and is composed of lines cut in the green turf, exposing the white chalk beneath. It is believed to have been created some 1500 years ago, during the years of the Roman occupation, with the club in the giant's right hand perhaps deriving from Hercules. A recent suggestion that it was created in the 1650s, as a satire on *Cromwell as Hercules, seems less than convincing.
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