<< Our Photo Pages >> Dragon Hill - Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature in England in Oxfordshire

Submitted by Horatio on Friday, 13 September 2024  Page Views: 21444

Natural PlacesSite Name: Dragon Hill
Country: England County: Oxfordshire Type: Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
Nearest Town: Wantage  Nearest Village: Uffington
Map Ref: SU30078687
Latitude: 51.579895N  Longitude: 1.567442W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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rvbaker2003 visited on 26th Jan 2025 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4

Ellpezz visited on 17th Sep 2023 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 3 Access: 3

Jansold visited on 24th Oct 2016 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 4 Access: 4

SolarMegalith visited on 26th Feb 2011 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 5

ChrisHealey visited on 22nd Jun 2008 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 4 Really special place, we were here on the summer solstice watching a storm come in from the distance.

TheWhiteRider visited on 19th Jun 2007 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4

RedKite1985 visited on 1st Jan 1997 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4

Bladup nicoladidsbury h_fenton myf JimChampion hamish Wazza12 have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 4.14 Ambience: 4 Access: 4

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Horatio : Dragon Hill just off centre, with the white horse bellow and the small flat bottomed geological area (cwm like) pointing towards the horse with the Dragon Hill Road snaking around this, Woolstone village is visible through the trees (Vote or comment on this photo)
Immediately below the Uffington White Horse is the mysterious Dragon Hill. The general consensus is it is a natural hill - but could the top have been flattened in ancient times? Legend tells that it was here that St George slew the dragon and its blood splashed over the hill causing the bare chalk patch where no grass will ever grow.

Original page and text by Thorgrim.
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Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by h_fenton : Dragon Hill viewed from the north west with Uffington White Horse beyond. Kite Aerial Photograph 6 May 2012 (3 comments - Vote or comment on this photo)

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by h_fenton : Dragon Hill viewed from the north with Uffington White Horse beyond and Uffington Castle on the horizon. Kite Aerial Photograph 6 August 2023 (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Postman : You know what Ancient Aliens says "Dragon" means. (2 comments - Vote or comment on this photo)

Dowsing Plan of Dragon Hill, Uffington
Dowsing Plan of Dragon Hill, Uffington submitted by AngieLake : Dragon Hill, Uffington - possible pattern of ritual movement dowsed in 2005. This petal pattern occurred quite rarely at other sites; Rathgall Hill fort, and Scorhill circle are two examples. (This isn't a copy of orig plan, so may not be quite as sharp.) (Vote or comment on this photo)

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by SolarMegalith : Dragon Hill - view from the west. This mysterious mound provided such finds as Iron Age pottery and coins, but it's use remains a mystery (photo taken on February 2011).

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by SolarMegalith : Dragon Hill - view from the south (photo taken on February 2011).

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by nicoladidsbury : Dragon Hill from the Uffington White Horse An incredible complex of monuments. Dragon Hill was amazing, the wind was roaring over from the East, if felt like the dragon was roaring in my ears! The photo was taken from the white horse, which can be seen in the foreground.

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by h_fenton : Dragon Hill, lowlight helping to show the shape of the top of the hill and the chalk pits that have dug into the eastern side of the hill. Also on the eastern side (right) of the top of the hill the grass is longer and less trampled. 26 / 09 / 2004 (1 comment)

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by JimChampion : The flat-topped mound from alongside the road. The grass to the left of the steps has been recently reinstated and covered with netting to give it a chance to recover.

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by hamish : I wanted to climb this hill but time got in the way. I wonder why it is barren on the top?

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill from the south east

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : The mythical Dragon Hill

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill from the White Horse (or is it a dragon?)

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : The fascinating landscape next to Dragon Hill (Which is off the photo to the right)

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill from the south

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : The landscape next to Dragon Hill is amazing (2 comments)

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill, From the mythical bare patch on top looking towards the white horse (or dragon?), It's a fantastic landscape!

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill from the north

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill and the white horse (or is it also a dragon?) from the north west

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill, Tis a special place, Indeed

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill (on the left) in it's landscape

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill from the west

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Bladup : Dragon Hill from the south east

Dragon Hill
Dragon Hill submitted by Humbucker : On the path down towards Dragon Hill from White Horse Hill. Wet & cold!

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 255m S 169° Uffington White Horse* Hill Figure or Geoglyph (SU30128662)
 357m SSW 192° Uffington Castle Neolithic long barrow* Long Barrow (SU30008652)
 500m SSW 200° Uffington Castle* Hillfort (SU299864)
 1.3km W 262° Hardwell Camp* Hillfort (SU2876686671)
 1.4km ESE 114° Rams Hill* Causewayed Enclosure (SU314863)
 2.1km S 177° Idlebush Barrow* Ancient Village or Settlement (SU302848)
 2.3km SW 232° Odstone Barrow Round Barrow(s) (SU28248545)
 2.3km E 85° The Blowing Stone* Holed Stone (SU324871)
 2.5km SW 233° Wayland's Smithy* Long Barrow (SU28098539)
 2.5km ENE 63° Fawler Modern Stone Circle* Modern Stone Circle etc (SU323880)
 3.7km SW 231° Ashbury Folly Barrows Round Barrow(s) (SU27238454)
 3.9km S 181° Knighton Bushes* Ancient Village or Settlement (SU300830)
 3.9km SW 219° Hailey Wood Barrows Round Barrow(s) (SU27638378)
 4.1km SSE 148° Lambourn Long Barrow* Long Barrow (SU32328338)
 4.6km ESE 112° Sincombe Farm Bowl Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SU34368521)
 4.9km SE 145° Lambourn Seven Barrows* Barrow Cemetery (SU32898288)
 5.2km SW 226° Idstone Hill Barrow Round Barrow(s) (SU26348327)
 5.2km SSW 207° Alfred's Castle* Hillfort (SU27738223)
 5.5km S 185° Park Farm Barrow Round Barrow(s) (SU29638143)
 5.8km SSW 204° Ashdown Barrow Round Barrow(s) (SU27748153)
 6.0km SSW 208° Swinley Copse Barrows Round Barrow(s) (SU27318159)
 6.0km SSE 162° Hangman's Stone - Upper Lambourn* Standing Stone (Menhir) (SU320812)
 6.0km N 349° Lower Coxwell Camp* Hillfort (SU289928)
 6.2km S 190° Fognam Clump Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SU29008072)
 6.3km SSW 194° Botley Barrow Round Barrow(s) (SU28618076)
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Re: Dragon Hill by DavidHoyle on Sunday, 15 September 2024
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There is also the classic Kate Bush Cloudbusting video with Donald Sutherland filmed on Dragon Hill.
Well worth a watch...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJll-eF5zUA


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Re: Dragon Hill by h_fenton on Monday, 07 May 2012
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Grid Reference: SU 30075 86860
Accuracy: 5
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Street View by coldrum on Wednesday, 17 March 2010
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Re: Dragon Hill by RSleepy on Monday, 28 May 2007
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Thorgrim, I may be wrong but I think the scientific concensus is that dragon hill is basically natural, if somewhat hacked around by man.
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Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Just visited the site and had some thoughts about the origins. The whole amphiteatre looks as if it is carved or shaped into a coiled dragon, with Dragon Hill as the eye, an excavation further down the hill looks like a nostril, and the carved hillside opposite looks like the lower limb or tail? This seemed evident from the top of the hill, at the apex. I then wondered about symbolism, and why the White Horse was there. Is it possible that early Christian zealots found an easy way to wipe clean the pagan significance of the site by carving a White Horse onto it, changing it to a site of religious significance? (St George and the Dragon). There is apparently no mention of the horse in the Domesday Book, and there are of course other examples of pagan symbols and festivals being hijacked by the early Christian Church.

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    Re: Dragon Hill by Thorgrim on Wednesday, 01 February 2006
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    You can't blame Christian zealots for carving the White Horse, it was there long before there were any Christians. The horse is 110m long and carved through the grass into chalk. It has been dated to between 1400 and 600BC.
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      Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Thursday, 02 February 2006
      Feel free to blame them for anything else though . . .
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    Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Thursday, 02 February 2006
    I understand from the NT information board that dating has been done on the carving of the White Horse to between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, Bronze Age. I retain a scepticism about the dating though, since no reference appears from earlier that Medieval times, and dating the erosive products of other White Horses put them at much younger than previously thought. On the same them though, does it seem too fanciful a theory that the hillside was carved into the shape of a Dragon in order to protect the fort from the North (symbolically speaking)?
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    Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Friday, 03 February 2006
    A few ideas that made me think about the White Horse:

    There was a move by the early Chirstian Church to alter to remove/adopt pagan images to help eradicate pagan worship and promote Christian thinking.

    First mention of White Horse Hill reportedly dates from around the middle 1000s, from writings found in Abingdon Abbey.

    There may have been 'a saddle' on the original carving.

    If the image of the horse was added to change the pagan symbolism of the site, then the Iconoclastic doctrine of the time would have outlawed the reproduction of a stylised image of St George.

    St George became popular in England during the 10th century, and White Horse Hill seems to have acquired a religious overtone to its history. The cutting is known as 'The Manger".

    It would have been very easy to simply carve a horse on to the hill, thus claiming it for Christianity.

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    Re: Dragon Hill by Thorgrim on Friday, 03 February 2006
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    The horse may have been recut, but the style is very similar to that on Iron Age British coins. I understand that the chalk cutting and removed debris has been analysed and dated. Can't see any connection with St George.
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      Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Friday, 03 February 2006
      You have to see the dragon to see the connection with St George.

      When I stood at the apex of the cutting, it appeared that the whole hill had been shaped into a dragon, with dragon hill as the eye, and the hill itself as the backbone of the creature. In pre-Christian mythology, dragons had protective symbolism, and it didn't seem such a stretch of the imagination to see how an ancient people may have sculpted a natural feature into a great protective creature. Consider the aspect out across the Thames Valley to the North, and the location of the fort. This site had strategic significance as well as a spiritual beauty.

      In Christian mytholgy, dragons were loathed as devilish serpents, symbols of paganism and ungodly thought. The site, were it known as a pagan site, would be offensive to 10th century Christian thinkers, but with a ready made 'religious' tale of St George and The Dragon emerging from the Middle East, an opportunity arose to completely change the significance of the site and give it a NEW Christian history.

      The Iconoclastic Christian would be forbidden to represent St George himself, so they carved the horse and saddle onto the back of the dragon, and appropriated the tale of St George and The Dragon for the sight, and with one easy stroke, wiped away the memory of any paganism.

      It's imaginitive I know, but it's not so far beyond the realm of possibility. I have no detailed knowledge of how the carving was dated, but I will follow up, if only to reconcile the methods with what I already know of geology from my studies. I am proposing a possible age of 1000 years ago, as opposed to the 2000 to 3000 year suggestion on the NT board.

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      Re: Dragon Hill by Thorgrim on Friday, 03 February 2006
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      Do you have any evidence that the whole hill was carved by man?
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      Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Friday, 03 February 2006
      I don't think the entire hill was carved.

      I think it was originally a natural gully, but the soft nature of the chalk allowed it to be shaped. I can't see how the regular 'sawtooth' pattern on the western side could be formed from usual erosive processes, leaving the opposite side so smooth. I think that the mound (an eye), and the ditch a little lower (the nostril) have been added and carved on the side representing the snout, and the opposite flank has been regularly cut to form the teeth of the lower jaw, or the lower limbs with the backbone coiled around 'The Manger'.

      I understand glacial processes have been suggested, but I can think of no other feature similar in any of the chalk downland in the rest of the south east? Also, you may have glimpsed a great ice-sheet away to the North as you stood on the hill 10,000 years ago, but I was not aware that the ice-sheets spread south across the Thames Valley.

      My impression is that the 'sawtooth' feature is regular enough to imply excavation, and that the debris was possibly used to flatten the gully floor, or maybe even build the mound, a feature I think looks like the dragon eye. The two slightly raised platforms on the gully floor looked like part of the dragon's tongue, or mouth, but may have served a more practical purpose during celebrations or festivals.

      Nor do I think it takes much to see the dragon, or its open mouth, coiled around 'The Manger'. My girlfriend thought it looked obvious once I had pointed out all the features. I can't find a panoramic view from the apex, but I think it's worth a fresh look.

      There is an recent analogue worth bearing in mind too. To those of use who have often driven through the huge cutting on the M40, look how quickly it has become covered in greenery in the space of a few short years. Soon, very little of the beautiful white chalk will be visible at all.

      I have my doubts about whether such a shallow carving would survive periods of possibly hundreds of years of neglect?

      And lastly, I'm not taken to flights of fancy very often.
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    Re: Dragon Hill by Eledhwen on Wednesday, 13 September 2006
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    Unlikely, Brian. The Uffington White Horse is known to be Bronze Age, so can't be Christian. More likely to be in honour of Rhiannon or some other horse deity. There is an academically unpopular theory that the white carving is not a horse at all, but is a dragon, signifying a great dragonslaying at the site. Whatever the name of the dragonslayer had been, they would inevitably be re-named George in the post-Christian era. The Domesday Book listed the wealth of the nation in towns, homesteads, people and livestock for taxation purposes. The Uffington horse would therefore be irrelevant to the visiting recorder of the time, as it was merely an image of no economic value.
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    Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Wednesday, 27 September 2006
    Re-visited the site during the summer as part of an Archaelogical group. Must be my natural cynicism, but I found the idea that the carving had been maintained in its original state during its 2,000 to 3,000 year history something of a stretch. That would require a colossal effort of will during several very troubled periods in our history. Also, Chalk weathers very quickly, as is shown by the Twyford and Chiltern cuttings, and the bomb craters on Reigate and Colley Hills from the last war are completely obscured by grass.

    Of more interest to me however, is the Dragon head shape of the entire hill, and the significance of this feature. Many of the party I was with saw the form quite clearly when I had pointed it out, but had simply never looked at what they didn't expect to see. This would imply that Dragon Hill is in fact a man-made 'eye' and that the western gulleys are part human sculpted. The questions is raises for me are:

    Why would they carve a dragon into the hillside?
    Does is relate the fort as a centre of commerce?
    Could the white horse or dragon be a bronze age 'advertisement' for the commercial centre of trade at Uffington Fort?
    Why is the Dragon facing North?

    Lastly, being of a somewhat religious background in my youth, I retain an interest in the power of the Chirstian church through human history. I certianly would not mourn the passing into obscurity of the George and the Dragon myth of White Horse Hill. So much wonderful history must have been buried in Christian dogma.

    Brian
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    Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Monday, 16 July 2007
    could the white horse be a zebra?
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    Re: Dragon Hill by Anonymous on Tuesday, 16 September 2008
    I'm back on my old white horse again! Obviously, not everyone else could see what I could when I toured the white horse hill, much to my frustration. So I checked google earth, only to find the resolution was too broad - so I gave up talking about it.

    Then, thanks to my fiancee, I checked Multimap and it is now there for everyone to see. Have a look at the aerial views of white horse hill and I defy anyone not to see some form of open-mouthed creature, with dragon hill as the eye, and the manger as the open mouth. A creature that is protecting the fort perhaps? It is SO obvious...someone tell me you can see it.
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