Vale of Red Horse facts for kids
The Vale of Red Horse is a lovely countryside area in southern Warwickshire, England. It's also sometimes called the Vale of the Red Horse or Red Horse Vale. This area sits between the steep hills of Edgehill and the northern part of the Cotswolds. It follows the valley of the Stour.
Long ago, people wrote that the Vale was a great place for growing corn. Even today, not many people live there. Its main towns are Kineton and Shipston-on-Stour. An old Roman road called the Fosse Way runs through the Vale. A famous battle, the Battle of Edgehill, happened nearby in October 1642.
What's in a Name?
The Vale of Red Horse gets its name from a special drawing on the ground called the Red Horse of Tysoe. This was a huge picture of a horse cut into the red clay near the village of Tysoe.
People first wrote about the Red Horse in 1607. When it was first made, it was almost 100 yards long! Experts aren't sure exactly when it was created. Some think it might be from the Anglo-Saxon period (a very long time ago!), while others believe it's from the 1400s. Sadly, the Red Horse drawing disappeared by the time of the First World War.
The Vale in History
A poet named Michael Drayton lived in Warwickshire in the 1600s. He wrote a long poem about different places called Poly-Olbion. In his poem, he wrote a lot about the "Vale of Red-horse." He said it was "near thirty miles" long. He also thought it was a shame that the Vale of Red Horse wasn't as famous as other places like the Vale of White Horse or the Aylesbury Vale.
The Vale Today
Today, the name "Vale of Red Horse" is used for a local voting area in Stratford-upon-Avon. It's also used for a larger voting area in Warwickshire.
The borders of these modern voting areas are smaller than the original historic Vale. The old Vale of Red Horse included all the low-lying land that separated the northern Cotswolds from the Edgehill area. Some villages within the modern voting areas include Tysoe, Oxhill, Whatcote, Pillerton Priors, Pillerton Hersey, and Butlers Marston.
