Vale of the Red Horse
Encyclopedia
The Vale of the Red Horse is a rural area in South Warwickshire
, England
, below the escarpment of Edgehill
. It takes its name from a hill figure
of a horse
once cut into the red clay
. The figure is first recorded in 1607; it may have been Saxon in origin, and possibly connected with the war god Tiw. The figure was re-cut several times over the next two centuries, each new figure being smaller than the last, and was finally covered over around 1910.
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, below the escarpment of Edgehill
Edge Hill, Warwickshire
Edge Hill is an escarpment and hamlet in the civil parish of Ratley and Upton, South Warwickshire, England.Edge Hill gave its name to the first battle of the English Civil War, in which it was a prominent feature....
. It takes its name from a hill figure
Hill figure
A hill figure is a large visual representation created by cutting into a steep hillside and revealing the underlying geology. It is a type of geoglyph usually designed to be seen from afar rather than above. In some cases trenches are dug and rubble made from material brighter than the natural...
of a horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
once cut into the red clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
. The figure is first recorded in 1607; it may have been Saxon in origin, and possibly connected with the war god Tiw. The figure was re-cut several times over the next two centuries, each new figure being smaller than the last, and was finally covered over around 1910.