66 - Whitehorse Hill - Oxfordshire - 11th September 2013

On Monday the 9th of September I headed up to Wolverhampton for a non high point 2 day related event which turned out to be a huge waste of my time and a total disappointment, so on the morning of Wednesday the 11th I felt the need to do something to cheer me up, I searched my maps and found a high point and headed off from Wolverhampton down the M5 towards Gloucestershire and then eventually arriving at Whitehorse Hill, the highest point of Oxfordshire.

Whitehorse hill as the name suggests has a White horse on it, the hill lies to the east of Swindon near the village of Uffington in the south west corner of Oxfordshire, the land is owned by the National trust so I parked in the NT car park for free and headed off for a walk to the top of the hill.

I left the car park and headed east for a while, from the very start the views across to Swindon were amazing. While walking I noticed a bird hovering over the path ahead of me and when I approached I saw it was an amazing bird of prey, it just stayed hovering above me for ages and was quite an amazing sight. I continued along the past and crossed a small road but now the path rose a bit more steeply and I was soon approaching the top of the hill where a trig point marked the spot.

I stopped around the top of the hill for a few moments to admire the view and take a few photos and then I headed off to explore more of the area, the top of the hill is dominated by an ancient iron age hill fort called Uffington castle. You can make out the location of the castle from the huge banks and ditched carved into the top of the hill and as I walked around I found the location of some of the gates into the fort. After walking around the edge of the castle I decided it was time to head back to the car and continue on my journey home. It was just a short walk back to my car, I was so pleased I had stopped off on my way home after such a disappointing 2 days in Wolverhampton.

Whitehorse hill is worth a visit if you are in the area, it has some beautiful views and very interesting features.