Up to 1,000 people could wend their way up Roundway Hill on Saturday as part of a remarkable initiative to ring the Devizes Millennium White Horse with lanterns.

Dave Buxton, the artistic director of Devizes Outdoor Celebratory Arts, which is organising the event, said that, following a series of creative workshops over the past few weeks, more than 300 lanterns will take part in the ceremony.

He said: “Like in the Christmas parade, many of the lantern carriers will be accompanied by family members, so the parade will consist of more like 1,000 people.

“It will set off at around 9pm from the bottom of Folly Road, by the Omitec entrance, which will also be the lantern collecting point.

“Lanterns will be placed around the White Horse from 10pm and it will remain lit until around midnight.”

Among the hundreds of lanterns taking part will be the giant horse – or unicorn – that amazed the crowds at the lantern parade during the Christmas festival in the Market Place last November.

It will be joined by two other horses made in recent weekend workshops.

As well as the lantern parade, there will be lots of entertainment, including from performance group The Foxes. The evening will culminate in a pyrotechnic display from pa-Boom, which is also arranging a similar event at Alton Barnes the same evening.

But that is not the end of it. Mr Buxton said: “On the Sunday we are encouraging people to come back to the hill at lunchtime and bring a picnic, reminisce about the event and collect their lanterns to take home as souvenirs.”

The events at Roundway Hill and Alton Barnes are the culmination of 15 months of preparation for the White Horse project organised as part of the Salisbury International Arts Festival.

Artist Ali Pretty, who is working on the project, said the aim was to incorporate seven of Wiltshire’s white horses into a 100 mile walk that left Salisbury on Sunday and ends with the illumination of both the Devizes and Alton Barnes white horses.