View over the Vale of the Red Horse
The "Red Horse of Tysoe" is the name given to the figure of a horse which used to be cut onto the hillside above the village of Tysoe. The turf had been cut away to expose the ruddy coloured soil beneath, in the shape of a galloping or leaping horse. The figure is no longer visible today as it has been allowed to grass over by successive generations of local villagers and landowners, while the actual site, a slope of some 30 degrees, has been planted with softwood trees, completely obscuring any visible trace of the figure. However, the Horse was at one time famous enough to cause the area to become known as "The Vale of the Red Horse".
The name of Tysoe has been suggested as meaning "Tiw's hoh", which means a spur of land dedicated to the God Tiw, an Anglo-Saxon God of war. Legend connects Tiw with the binding of an evil beast, i.e. a story of the triumph of good over evil, and it may be that the original Horse dates from the Saxon period, cut by them perhaps to commemorate a victory. There is, however, little hard evidence to prove this dating. Certainly some other Hillfigures such as the Uffington Horse and the Cerne Giant do have some greater antiquity and it is not impossible, therefore that the Red Horse does indeed date from the Dark ages. The earliest documentary evidence for the existence of the Horse is from 1606 when cartographer John Speed, writing of Warwickshire, mentions the "Vale of the Red Horse". In 1607 the figure itself is mentioned in Camden's "Brittania".".... and a great part of the very Vale is thereupon termed the Vale of the Red Horse, on account of the shape of a horse cut out in a red hill by the country people, hard by Pillerton."
Sir William Dugdale, who was commissioned to record the nations treasures during the Civil War, may have seen the Horse when at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. "Within the precinct of the Manor of Tishoe, now belonging to the Earl of Northampton, there is cut upon the side of Edgehill the proportion of a horse in very large form; which by by reason of the ruddy colour of the earth is called the Red Horse and giveth denomination to that fruitful and pleasant country thereabouts, commonly called the Vale of the Red Horse: the trenches of which ground where the shape of the said Horse is so cut out, being yearly scoured by a Free-holder in this Lordship, who holds certain land there by that service"
"Scouring" is the name given to the annual, (or in some cases every seven years) cleaning of the weeds and grass that had obscured the figure. It may be that Dugdale actually saw what was left of the Saxon figure. Some have suggested that the Horse dates from this period and may have been cut after the Battle of Edgehill, but earlier references disprove this theory. It seems certain that the Horse was already old by the Seventeenth century. After this period, it may be that the Horse became neglected and overgrown, so much so that it may have been completely gone by the middle of the next century. There is certainly no evidence on the ground today of a horse cut into the escarpment, but it's name lives on in "The Vale of the Red Horse"
This should be a quick and easy Cache & Dash, but the main reason for placing this Cache is that other than walking the Edgehill footpath, this is the only point of road access granting a view over Red Horse Vale. On a clear day the view in the far distance stretches as far as the Malvern Hills some forty odd miles away, in fact the smudge of white at the base of the distant hills is in fact the roofline of Malvern, while in the other direction, should you be interested, it is possible to see as far as the Bullring in Birmingham. You are looking for a Camo'd green Petling tube, containing only a log and pencil. It is NOT necessary to search through the stump of rubbish to find the Cache, but please hide and conceal as found.
Congratulations to ardensbold for an excellent FTF, within less than six hours of the Cache being published!