A hundred-year-old giant chalk kiwi carved into the British countryside has been granted protected status.
The Bulford Kiwi was painstakingly carved by reluctant New Zealand troops stationed at Bulford, close to Stonehenge, at the end of World War One.
It's a monolithic 130m tall outline of a kiwi, an unusual sight in an area better known for hillside chalk horses and military badges.
Soldiers waiting for transport back to New Zealand in 1919 carved the kiwi into the hillside, according to historian Fiona Barker in the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand Te Ara. At the time, the kiwi had only recently come to symbolise New Zealand.
"As New Zealand soldiers met those from other countries during the war, they developed a stronger sense of their own distinctive identity. The term 'Kiwi' became widely used to describe them," Ms Barker explained.
But digging up topsoil to reveal the giant kiwi was more punishment than pleasant affair for the troops.
According to historian Kate Bergamar, the exercise was intended to distract troops who had become so sick of waiting for a ship to take them home that they were threatening to riot.
"The men requested a relaxation of discipline but were refused and the Kiwis, infuriated, went on the rampage, looted the canteen and the officers' mess, drinking all the liquor & causing extensive damage," she wrote in Discovering Hill Figures.
"A 'Col MEAD' suggested the men should be employed on cutting a giant Kiwi on Beacon Hill. The work was done in February & March 1919 by the New Zealand Canterbury Engineers. It was not a labour of love; fatigue parties were detailed."
Despite its less-than-romantic creation story, the chalk kiwi has become a symbol of New Zealand's involvement in the war.
"The Bulford Kiwi was cut into the chalk at the end of the war by Kiwi soldiers themselves, to mark the presence of their forces in England, and their achievements at the front.
"One hundred years on, it is right to remember New Zealand's valour," Roger Bowdler from Historic England told the BBC.
Perhaps it can also be a source of soulice for Kiwis around the country who are all too familiar with the frustration of waiting for transport to show up.
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