The big picture: the Uffington White Horse and the White Horse at Cherhill

England isn’t Iceland. I discovered that when I was planning our England road trip. You go to Iceland to experience unspoiled nature and solitude. Easy. I had a hard time in the case of England, because I wanted to have a goal for this trip, to make it meaningful and memorable for us. England is packed with attractions: nature, historical, prehistoric, you name it. However, England is also packed with tourists, so some of the attractions may not be worth the trouble of visiting, at least photography-wise. Finally, I came up with a goal (I admit it’s very lame and Alex never approved of it, but since he excused himself from goal setting and planning, I stuck with mine). My goal was to explore the sites in England that have an association or connection to fantasy or urban fantasy genres of literature or visit the sites that could have easily had such a connection. In short, visit sites that have some mystic or legendary flair (at least for me). Hence, we visited many prehistoric attractions.

The second day of our road trip started with climbing the Uffington Castle hill in search of the famous prehistoric horse figure made of white chalk — the Uffington White Horse. The horse turned out to be on a nearby hill, but we did not complain since they are right next to each other, and the Uffington Horse hill is lower, so we were happy to descend. Unfortunately, the horse figure is carved onto the hilltop so it is not possible to see it whole while being on the top of the hill. The view from the official viewpoint is not good either. We found that even the view from an unmarked spot on a nearby road is better, even though cars are not supposed to stop there. The best way to view it is to fly over it (which was not feasible for us). Anyway, we did our best to commemorate our visit 🙂 (see the pictures below).

The horse figure is very old but also very abstract, so much so that it looks like modern art. Well, as one Russian saying goes, the new is the well-forgotten old.

Right near the Uffington Horse hill stands another famous hill, called Dragon Hill, where, according to a legend, St. George killed the Dragon. The Dragon’s blood penetrated the hilltop and, since then, the grass does not grow there.

From the Uffington Horse hill you can see a valley known as the Manger, and legend says that the horse grazes there at night.

Not too far from the Uffington Horse, we visited another horse figure carved on a hill. This is a much more recent monument, carved in 1780. The Cherhill horse (or, more officially, the White Horse at Cherhill) looks like a regular horse. It is a bit more prosaic and not as exciting as the Uffington horse, but the surrounding landscape is very pretty and the horse is more visible since it is carved on the side of the hill.