Iron Age Gallery

Uffington White Horse, Oxfordshire, UK

The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 110 m long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure has been shown to date back some 3, 000 years, to the Bronze Age, by means of optically stimulated luminescence dating carried out following archaeological investigations in 1994. These studies produced three dates ranging between 1400 and 600 BC. Iron Age coins that bear a representation comparable to the Uffington White Horse have been found, supporting the early dating of this artifact; counter suggestions that the figure was fashioned in the Anglo-Saxon period now seem untenable. Numerous other prominent prehistoric sites are located nearby, notably Wayland's Smithy long barrow. The Uffington is by far the oldest of the white horse figures in Britain, and is of an entirely different design from the others

© DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Bratton Camp & White Horse N070972

BRATTON CAMP AND WHITE HORSE, Westbury, Wiltshire. Aerial view. Below an Iron Age hill fort, enclosing a much earlier long barrow, stands the Westbury White Horse. Cut into the hillside in 1778, this replaced an older horse, possibly commemorating King Alfred's nearby victory over the Vikings

© Historic England

Aerial, Defence, Fortification, Horse, Iron Age, Rural

Iron Age farming J950067

SILCHESTER ROMAN CITY WALLS, Hampshire. Reconstruction drawing by Ivan Lapper. Recent research suggests that Iron Age Silchester was much more of an organised large town than the rural settlement that this picture implies

© Historic England

Agriculture, Farming, Graphic, Iron Age, Work