Possible Site of Hill Figure at The Hangings

Image courtesy of Gary Stocker.

Description of this historic site

The possible site of a hill figure, The Red Horse which may date back to the Medieval period. The exact location of the hill figure is not certain but it was situated in the Tysoe area.

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Notes about this historic site

1 Red Horse cut by ‘the country people’.
2 The figure was scoured annually, on Palm Sunday, with accompanying festivities, and the tenant of the farm containing it is said to have held the land by the manorial service of scouring the horse.
3 Red Horse marked.
4 The figure was probably obliterated when the common field was enclosed in 1798 and the precise site is lost. Dating is uncertain and Saxon, Medieval and Post Medieval dates have been proposed.
5 It has been proposed that the site was located at approximately SP3544 and it is argued that air photographs indicate the location of the Red Horse as a vegetation mark. After its destruction a new figure was cut some way to the N (PRN 2065).
6 AP.
7 A resistivity survey also indicated ground disturbance which could mark the location of the site.
8 Examination of the differential growth patterns of trees and augering with an iron bar indicated an alternative location at about SP3545.
9 A reference is made to the Red Horse by cartographer John Speed, in 1606 who wrote ‘…corn as the chiefest commodity where of the Red Horse Vale yieldeth most abundantly’ In 1607 Camden in his ‘Britannia’ wrote ‘the shape of a horse cut in a red hill by countrey people hard by Pillerton’ Horse also mentioned by Dugdale in 1642.
10 Resistivity report from 1980.
11 Booklet from 1965.
12 Press cutting from 1964.
13 A letter from 1887.
14 Further information from 1887.
15 Letter from 1964.
16 Transparencies of the site.
17 Photographs.
18 Note of documentary evidence.
19 Correspondence about photographs.
20 Brief entry about the site.
21 Correspondence from 1990.
22 Addresses of people researching the site in 1990.
23 Internal memo.
24 Correspondence (e-mail) about the site.
25 Internet material.
26 Documentary evidence from 1750.
27 Further booklet, published later than 5, but no date given. Author assumed to be Miller, W.G. as his are the only contact details given.
28 Correspondance from W.G.Miller to Emma Jones containing further information on the Red Horse.