Is the Uffington White Horse Actually a Horse? And What Is It Doing There?

Last week I walked some of Britain’s oldest path, the Ridgeway, which runs across south central England. It’s literally a ridge, and would once have been a vitally important path when the valleys on either side might have been impenetrable marsh or forest.

I walked 56 miles in 4 days, starting in Avebury and ending in Goring.

Lots of amazing views of Britain’s brown and pleasant land. Red kites galore. And, early on Day 1, I even saw a brown hare, something I hadn’t seen for many decades. At one point it sprinted (should say galloped?) through a field alongside and past me, quite the sight, but I was so busy admiring it I didn’t get the video.

Lots of barrows and burial grounds. Lovely peaceful places. I was particularly taken with Wayland's Smithy

The path was pretty deserted - I only passed somebody every hour or so. Sometimes I went several hours without seeing anyone, excluding cyclists of which there were a few, especially towards Goring.So lots of time to think, and one of the things I thought about at great length was what to do with my largest position, something I’ll have more on soon. Gold stocks look, by the way, as though the summer consolidation is over, and are starting to pick up. Here’s to another bonanza 12 months …. But back to the matter in hand. Each evening I would walk down off the Ridgeway to one of the villages in the valley, then climb back up the hill the following morning. Lots of lovely churches and thatched cottages to be seen.

One of the many landmarks on the trip is the famous Uffington White Horse, carved into the downs some 3000 years ago in the late Bronze Age. With the underlying chalk, it is bright and white, and locals have maintained it all these years. It almost looks modern: minimalist and abstract with clean, stylized lines conveying sweeping movement.

But as I walked the mile or two up the hill that sunny morning, several things struck me. First, that the White Horse isn’t actually very visible from the valley below.

If its creators wanted people in the valley to see it, surely they would have carved it into the side of the hill. But they didn’t. They carved it right on the lip.

nor is visible from the Ridgeway just above. In fact, it’s not that visible from land at all and better seen from the air above.

That immediately made me think of the Nazca Lines in Peru (see vid below), those ancient figures carved into a plateau which too best appreciated from the air.

But that doesn’t quite work either. If the Uffington