SOUTH EAST
04. OXFORDSHIRE, UFFINGTON WHITE HORSE
Distance: 1.4 miles/3km | Time: 1 hour | Grade: Easy | Total ascent: 61m
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This short but history-packed walk curves across the blustery flanks of the rolling Berkshire Downs, leading to the 3,000-year-old Uffington White Horse.
The route is familyfriendly and the views are huge throughout, with the Cotswolds outspread in the distance. What’s more, there’s an Iron Age hillfort to explore, too.
1. START
Head through the gate at the bottom of the car park then follow the line of the fence that snakes across the open hillside. The Vale of White Horse is already in full view to your left, backdropped by a vast swathe of rural Oxfordshire, while skylarks flute and flutter overhead.
2. 0.2 MILES
When you reach a memorial bench – engraved with the aphorism “What is life but one grand adventure?” – follow the wide grassy path as it bends uphill to the right, then shortly afterwards veers left towards a gate. The prehistoric outline of the White Horse is already partly visible up ahead.
3. 0.4 MILES
Cross the minor road and continue upslope along the trail, soon arriving directly above the thin chalky trenches that make up the White Horse.
4. 0.6 MILES
This extraordinary landmark is Britain’s oldest white horse figure, essentially forming a giant piece of abstract Bronze Age art. Up close, not only do you get a sense of the thought and precision that went into its creation, but you find yourself pondering the questions that archaeologists have long grappled with. Who designed it, and how? Was it a spiritual totem? A warning to outside tribes?
Whatever the truth, it now looks out across a mighty panorama of farms, fields, wind turbines and woodlands.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can take a downslope detour to reach the flat-topped hillock of Dragon Hill.
5. 0.8 MILES
From the White Horse, head uphill, following the grassy track to the crest of the slope, where a trig point stands sentry over the colossal – at about 32,000 square metres – Iron Age hillfort of Uffington Castle. You’re now also very close to a section of the Ridgeway National Trail.
6. 1 MILE
After making a clockwise half-loop of the fort’s grassy banks, leave the fort at the gap in its western wall and head back downhill towards a gate. Follow the path diagonally for 90 metres across a separate meadow.
7. 1.2 MILES
Recross the road, then return across the field you started in, passing a useful toposcope on your way to the top of the car park.
USEFUL INFO
Starting point
The National Trust’s White Horse Hill Car Park. Members free; nonmembers £2 for two hours or £4 all day, coins or Paybyphone app only.
Terrain
Mainly smooth but can get muddy in places. It’s grazing land, so expect sheep poo. No stiles, but it would be hard going with a wheelchair or buggy.
Map
OS Explorer 170
Eat/drink/stay
The White Horse is an atmospheric old pub with rooms. whitehorse woolstone.co.uk
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