English Place-name Society

Survey of English Place-Names

A county-by-county guide to the linguistic origins of England’s place-names – a project of the English Place-Name Society, founded 1923.

Dragon Hill

Early-attested site in the Parish of Uffington

Etymology

Dragon Hill, 1830 OS; cf. Grinsell p. 12, 'Dragon Hill is the curious knoll just below Uffington Castle and the White Horse - there is no doubt that the eminence is natural but with an artificially flattened top - The well-known tradition, recorded as far back as 1738 by Wise, is that Dragon Hill is where St George slew the Dragon, and the patch of bare chalk on the knoll is where the blood issued from the Dragon's wound, poisoning the ground so that no grass has ever grown there since. This bare patch is just as plain now as it was two hundred years ago.' The mound is probably the eceles beorh mentioned in the charter-bounds of Uffington and Woolstone, v. Pt 3.