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The district of the Vale of White Horse lies between the
River Thames in the north and the ancient Ridgeway
road on top of the Berkshire Downs in the south, and stretches from Oxford south
west to the Wiltshire border. Its name comes from
the figure of a horse carved into the hillside above
the village of Uffington. This is the oldest chalk
figure in Britain and dates back to around 1000
BC. |
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The most obvious
feature of the Vale of White Horse district is
that much of it is very flat! Not so in the south however,
for the ancient Ridgeway closely follows the top of the Berkshire
Downs which are part of the North
Wessex Downs Area of Natural Beauty. The spring line at the foot of the hills is where the towns and villages nearest to the Downs have grown up. North
of the spring line the flat plain of the Vale stretches to the Midvale
Ridge, a low limestone ridge which separates the
low-lying clay areas of the Oxfordshire Vale to the
north and the Vale of the White Horse to the south and
forms a distinct escarpment.
North of the Midvale Ridge is the
River Thames which forms the boundary between the Vale
of White Horse district and West Oxfordshire to the
north. After the Thames, the Vale's second river is the diminutive
River Ock, which rises near Little Coxwell and
flows into the River Thames at Abingdon collecting
tributaries from springs along the
base of the Downs.
The main town of the Vale
of White Horse is the attractive Thames-side
town of Abingdon. Other Vale towns are the historic and equally attractive market
towns of Faringdon in the west and Wantage in
the south.
All the towns are full of interesting buildings full of character and they have
excellent shops. Just to the north of Wantage is the dormitory village of Grove which has been developed
from just a hamlet only in the last 60 years. |
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Alphabetical Listing of villages:
A
Appleford-on-Thames, Appleton, Ardington, Ashbury
B
Baulking, Blewbury, Bourton, Buckland, Buscot
C
Charney
Bassett, Childrey, Chilton, Coleshill, Compton
Beauchamp, Cumnor
D
Denchworth, Drayton
E
East Challow, East Hanney, East Hendred, Eaton
F
Farmoor, Fernham, Frilford, Fyfield
G
Garford, Goosey, Great Coxwell, Grove
H
Harwell, Hatford, Hinton
Waldrist
I
Idstone |
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K
Kennington, Kingston
Bagpuize, Kingston
Lisle, Knighton
L
Letcombe
Bassett, Letcombe Regis,
Little Coxwell, Littleworth, Lockinge, Longcot, Longworth, Lyford,
M
Marcham, Milton
N
North
Hinksey
R
Radley
S
Shellingford, Shippon, Shrivenham, South
Hinksey, Southmoor, Sparsholt, Stanford
in the Vale, Steventon, Sunningwell, Sutton Courtenay,
T
Tubney
U
Uffington, Upton
W
Watchfield, West
Challow, West
Hanney, West
Hendred, Woolstone, Wootton, Wytham |
