Court Hill Centre

Vale of the White Horse.

by leics

Wantage is a really pleasant little market town in Oxfordshire (don't know why VT won't put it there..................), with interesting shops.

But the main reason for visiting it is that it is in the Vale of the White Horse. Go to see the eponymous horse, probably carved into the chalky hillside during the Iron Age. As an offering to the goddess? as a tribal marker? Nobody knows.....................but it's still there.

Above it lies an Iron Age hillfort, its boundaries still clear. Originally faced with stone, and topped with wooden palisades, it must have been a formidable fortress guarding the prehistoric Ridgeway which runs nearby.

And what of Dragon Hill? Legend has it that this natural hill, levelled by man, was where St George killed the dragon. I think not..................but I can imagine trials of strength and determination taking place there, whilst the hillside was thronged with watchers.

And the horse, at the dead of night, walks down the Ridgeway to Wayland's Smithy where the greatest smith of English folk-tale waits to shoe it......................................................

Wayland's Smithy is an impressive prehistoric tomb, just off the Ridgeway.