The Uffington Pre-Iron-Age Horse
This is a superb example of the art of cutting horses in the shallow
top-soil overlying
the chalk of the Downs.
It is a series of unconnected lines, and
stands overlooking the Vale of the White Horse to the east of the town of Swindon.
It lies on the ancient track way called the Ridgeway, itself many thousand years old,
and within very close proximity to the Iron Age Hill fort of Uffington Castle.
First mentioned in Norman Chronicles it may have been a tribal totem, the focus
of religious ceremonies which over the centuries transformed into the Scouring Festivals
so disapproved by the Church.
The Horse is 111 metres long and 40 metres high.
Close to the Horse is Dragon Hill where St. George is supposed to have
slain the Dragon.
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