THE VALE OF WHITE HORSE

Today the Vale of White Horse is familiar to us as one of the five district councils of Oxfordshire. Historically, the area formed the northern-most district of Berkshire until 1974 when the county boundaries were re-drawn.

The Vale has also long been recognised as a distinct agricultural region. Celia Fiennes when travelling from Wiltshire to Oxfordshire in c1690 writes of passing through the ‘Vale of White Horse’. In this latter context the Vale is generally understood to cover an area stretching from the Thames in the north, to the Ridgeway on the Berkshire downs in the south, and from the Wiltshire border in the west, to the eastern Thames boundary at Streatley.

The Vale of White Horse takes its name from the chalk figure (now thought to date from the late Bronze Age) which lies just below the Iron Age hillfort at Uffington.

© English Heritage. NMR
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© English Heritage. NMR
Click to enlarge