Uffington White Horse is a highly stylized hill figure, 374 feet (110 m) long, cut out of the turf on the upper slopes of Uffington Castle, in Oxfordshire. Best views of the horse are obtained from the north, particularly from around the villages of Great Coxwell, Longcot and Fernham.
The figure has been shown to date back some 3,000 years, to the Bronze Age, based on 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 have been found that bear a representation of the Uffington White Horse reinforcing the early dating of this artifact, thus further discounting alternate theories that the figure was created in the Early Middle Ages. It has long been debated whether the chalk figure is intended to represent a horse or some other animal. However, it has been called a horse since the eleventh century at least. An Abingdon cartulary, written by monks on vellum, between 1072 and 1084, refers to "mons albi equi" at Uffington ("the White Horse Hill"). The horse is thought to represent a tribal symbol perhaps connected with the builders of Uffington Castle. Due to the angle of the slope it is carved on, only a small part of the horse can be seen at a time by an observer standing on the ground.
Up until the late 19th century the horse was scoured every seven years as part of a more general local fair held on the hill. However, when the regular cleaning is halted the figure quickly becomes obscured. It has always needed frequent work, currently by English Heritage, for the figure to remain visible.