The Red Horse of Tysoe

A reconstruction of the horse.

This probably ancient hill figure has been long destroyed, but it may once have had significance equal to the White Horse of Uffington. Today it survives only in local place names and business names.

The horse was cut into the steep escarpment of Edgehill in Warwickshire, a ridgeline of high ground which formed part of the long-distance ancient routeway which linked places such as the Rollright Stones, Traitor’s Ford and the Burton Dassett Hills. The area has an ancient spiritual heritage and is linked to ghostly phenomena.

The ancient routeway along Edgehill

The horse was formed of trenches cut into the clay subsoil and filled with a bright red, iron oxide-rich silt which is characteristic of the area and gave the figure its name. The horse, like the hill figure at Uffington, was intended to command the vast plain below the escarpment, which stretches to the west for several miles. From any point in the vale, the escarpment is visible on the horizon and the now vanished hill figure would have drawn the eye. It was a declaration to anyone who passed by.

The view over the Vale of the Red Horse

Unlike other monuments, hill figures are dependent on human agency for their survival. A few years of neglect and they vanish forever. It is also human agency which determines whether they retain their original outline or whether they are altered or improved according to the whim of the scourers. Or maybe this was the intention? So many ancient monuments, Stonehenge being a prime example, are now known to have been constantly modified and rearranged. Perhaps hill figures too were about the process of creation and recreation, and each successive generation added their own stamp to it?

A 19^th century recording of the horse

The first record of the horse’s presence dates to 1612, and local records from the 1640s state it was scoured every year. It seems it was much redefined over the centuries. The final version, ploughed up and destroyed in 1800, was a rather inferior design with a tail resembling a lion’s. A 20^th century investigation found evidence of this horse on the hillside, a little way above two other hill figures which it probably replaced.

The older figure was a galloping horse, 91 metres in length, with a smaller figure, probably a foal, in front of it. These were long grassed over by the 19^th century. The date of its construction is unknown, but it’s been suggested that, like the Uffington Horse, it dates to the Bronze Age. The horse became a symbol of power in the warrior societies of this time, and it features strongly in local legends such as Lady Godiva and the lady of Banbury Cross, perhaps part-forgotten memories of religious rites involving a woman (or Goddess) on horseback. The hill figure may have represented this deity, and proclaimed its might over the vast area it overlooked.

Another interesting point is the name of the nearby village. Tysoe derives from Tiw’s hoe; the hillside of Tiw. Tiw, or Tyr, was the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian God of warriors who gives his name to Tuesday. Was this hillside dedicated to Tiw by Anglo-Saxon settlers who found an already ancient and sacred figure on this hillside? It seems likely.

The escarpment looking down towards Tysoe

The Stonehenge Great Cursus

 The western end of the cursus.

The cursus is a strange and enigmatic structure, unique to British prehistory, and with a purpose which still eludes archaeologists.

Cursuses are ditched and banked enclosures, around 100m wide and extending for several kilometres across the landscape. Their shape gave rise to their name: an early suggestion, now refuted, was that they were racecourses.

The Stonehenge Cursus is three kilometres long and 100-150m in width, and stretches east-west across the plain a few hundred metres north of Stonehenge. It was built in the early Neolithic period, between 3600-3300BC, several hundred years before Stonehenge itself was begun, and is perhaps the oldest creation in the Stonehenge complex.

The location of the Lesser Cursus.

A second cursus was also built to the north, 60m wide and 400m in length, along a ridgeline which has a commanding position over the surrounding area. It had been extended at some point, and the fact that it simply stops at its eastern end suggests it may not have been finished.

The eastern end of the Great Cursus was formed by a now-ruined long barrow which dates to a broadly similar time, although it is unclear whether it was built before, after, or at the same time as the cursus. Many cursuses incorporate long barrows and other ritual structures.

It’s possible that this cursus too was unfinished, and the long barrow was simply a convenient ‘stop’. It’s also possible that they were never intended to be ‘finished’: they were simply extended continuously according to rules we can only guess at, rather like Stonehenge itself and the nearby timber monuments were continually remodelled. It’s becoming more and more apparent that the process of creating monuments was more important to our prehistoric ancestors than the finished structure itself.

Supporting this theory is the Cuckoo Stone, a standing stone which became a shrine a few hundred metres from the ‘end’ of the cursus and on the exact same alignment. Perhaps this would have in time been incorporated into the cursus. Further on the same alignment is Woodhenge, another standing stone called the Bulford Stone, and then the prominent Beacon Hill. Surely this cannot all be coincidence?

The view east along the cursus. The ditch aligns on the distant Beacon Hill.

The most accepted explanation for cursuses is commemoration and movement: perhaps they were a memorial of a processional way or a corpse road or spirit road. This could explain why many are linked to long barrows. Cursuses in other places seem to be transferring power from an older ritual monument to a newer one.

The Stonehenge Cursus begins at its western end on a ridgeline, which offers views in all directions, then rapidly drops to eventually reach Stonehenge Bottom, once a watercourse. The hillside quickly obscures the view behind, leaving the walker with nothing but the route ahead which remains visible, with the cursus ditch aligned on the distant Beacon Hill, until the midpoint when that too is swallowed.

The view behind is swallowed up as the traveller journeys east.

In the bowl of the valley, nothing remains of the outside world and the journeyer is left with a sense of isolation and disconnection. Was this a key part of this symbolic journey? Were people, perhaps the living or perhaps the dead, ritually and spiritually scoured clean here, aided by the flowing spring water, before continuing their journey back into the world? From this point, the walker climbs up the opposite slope, the views of the plain reappear, and the high point of the ridge appears where the long barrow stood and the cursus ends. A long journey is complete.

Durrington Walls

  

Reconstruction of Durrington Walls, showing the avenue, river, and timber circle.

Durrington Walls, found two miles from Stonehenge, is one of the greatest henge monuments in Britain, and part of the vast religious complex which stretches across the chalklands of Salisbury Plain.

The henge today survives as a chalk bank, originally three metres high and over a mile long, enclosing an area of 42 acres, with an internal ditch 16 metres wide and six metres deep. This vast earthwork enclosed a huge settlement, with up to a thousand wattle and chalk houses divided into discrete communities. The ditch and bank were dug around 2500BC, destroying many of the outer houses, and is linked to the increasing elaboration and enclosure of already ancient ritual sites, and also to the raising of the huge sarsens at Stonehenge.

The extent of the henge.

Durrington Walls was closely linked to Stonehenge. Researchers now think that people came to Durrington Walls, from across the chalklands and also much further afield, including Wales and northern Britain, bringing livestock and trade goods to an annual gathering at the midwinter solstice where community relationships were reaffirmed, livestock exchanged and marriage partners found. Two timber circles, one found immediately in front of the entrance and containing at its greatest extent six concentric rings of huge posts, have been linked to religious rites and funerary ceremony. Likely people brought cremated remains to Durrington to be deposited in the river, or for a chosen few, to be deposited inside the banks of Stonehenge after a short journey down the river. Midwinter has always been seen as a time of rebirth and renewal, when the sun begins again its annual journey across the sky, and has often been seen as the time when souls cross into the next world or alternatively join those souls waiting to be reborn.

The site of the avenue leading to the river.

Like Stonehenge, Durrington Walls had an avenue leading down to the river Avon, fifteen metres wide and with five-metre chalk banks on either side. Like Stonehenge, this avenue was based on a natural feature. Beneath the avenue, on the same alignment, was a ‘road’ of natural flint. This aligned perfectly on the midsummer solstice sunset. This is the opposite alignment of the Stonehenge avenue, and adds to the theory that they are spiritual ‘opposites’ – one linked to the living and one linked to the dead.

The focus of Durrington Walls, towards the fertile farmlands, the river and the rising sun.

Durrington Walls is on steeply sloping ground, which was terraced to build the hundreds of houses, with an area of high levelled ground furthest from the entrance where five elaborate enclosed buildings were raised. Perhaps they were chieftain’s houses or houses of the ancestors or spirits. They certainly had a natural command over the site. Unlike Stonehenge, which is on a bleak and exposed hillside which emphasises its liminality, Durrington Walls faces southeast, towards the rising sun which would give light and warmth to the community. It is sheltered from the prevailing winds and offers good views over and easy access to the river which provided nourishment in both practical and spiritual sense. It certainly feels like a place which was buzzing with life.