Horse Riding in England - English equestrian counties and horse riding
facilities.
Discover the pleasures of horse riding in England.
England is a country of wide open spaces and green and pleasant lands,
with a large rural equestrian population and excellent access to good
horse riding and other equestrian pursuits.
English Equestrian
Events
Equestrian News
English Images & Symbols
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Events like the annual British Eventing venues of Burghley, Blenheim
and Badminton are superb as are the many and varied local riding school
competitions and the vast array of british dressage competitions held
locally every month.
Horse riding in your local county :
Just click on the relevant county on the map and then use the individual
links to browse through the area you're interested in.
Browse our network of sites featuring local information, guides and countless
images of the most beautiful and interesting equestrian places to visit,
including;

Local equestrian centres
Equestrian competition and event diaries
Horse riding news and events
Hore Riding holidays
Horse tack and saddlery shops
Horse riding clubs, riding schools ....... and much more.
Discover what's available when you ride through the stunning Cotswolds,
through historic towns and villages or visit magnificent Cumbria with
its gorgeous lake district containing some of the most spectacular scenery
in England.
From Cornwall to Northumberland and all places in between.
localriding.com is developing and changing everyday. Come back often
and you'll discover some of the most fantastic horse riding available
anywhere.
England is famous for its horse culture and for its equestrian history.
Everything from the traditional image of the English huntsman to the
elegance and poise of the English lady mounted side saddle evoke that
quintessential
English equestrian flavour.
Some of the most famous English equestrian images include; HM Queen Elizabeth
mounted while reviewing the trooping of the colour on Horseguards parade
in London; or a group of redcoated huntsmen and hounds careering across
a green field; or a pair of shire horses with farmer and plough behind
or pulling a haywain in Constable style; and of course the changing of
the guard with the jingling harness of the Blues and Royals or Life Guards
trotting down the Mall.
In more traditional scenes you will see local riders trail riding through
the beautiful English countryside or competing in local horse shows or
dressage, showjumping or eventing competitions.
About England; its history, its heritage
and the english equestrian landscape.
England is the largest and most populous constituent country of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is located to the north-west
of mainland Europe.
Its inhabitants account for more than 82% of the total population of
the United Kingdom, whilst the mainland territory of England occupies
most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and shares
land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west.
Elsewhere, it is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Atlantic Ocean,
and English Channel.
England became a unified state during the 10th century and takes its
name from the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes who settled in
the territory during the 5th and 6th centuries.
The capital city of England is London, which is the largest city in Great
Britain, and the largest city in the European Union by most but not all
measures.
England ranks amongst the world's most influential and far-reaching centres
of cultural development. It is the place of origin of both the English
language and the Church of England, and English law forms the basis of
the legal systems of many countries: in addition, the nation was the historic
centre of the British Empire, and was also the birthplace of the Industrial
Revolution.
England was the first country in the world to become industrialised.
England is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern
experimental science. England was the world's first parliamentary democracy
and consequently many constitutional, governmental and legal innovations
that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.
The Kingdom of England was a separate state until 1 May 1707, when the
Acts of Union resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland
to create the Kingdom of Great Britain....... read
more about England and its history.
Traditional
English horse breeds are many and varied.
Native
breeds range from the statuesque Suffolk Punch and magnificent Shire,
right down to the Dartmoor, Exmoor and New Forest ponies
Other breeds inlcude : Dales and Fell ponies, Cleveland Bay, English
Thoroughbred, The Hunter, Hackney and many others.
The majority of horses are used for pleasure riding or for competing
in local competitions with Welsh Section C and D's, Thoroughbreds, Arabians,
Hanoverians and warmbloods being ever popular, but most riders owning
cross-breeds of one type or another.
In 1999, 2,400,000 people enjoyed riding in the England, (4.5 per cent
of the population), and half of those did so at least once a week.
Horse owners and riders are estimated to spend around 2.5 billion pounds
on horses, riding and associated items, including £150,000,000 on
buying horses and £1,200,000,000 on the care and upkeep of horses.
In 1999, there were around 965,000 horses in England with 900,000 privately
owned and 65,000 professionally owned.
St Georges Cross
The
St George's Cross is a red cross on a white background. It is the English
national flag.
It became the national flag of England in about 1277 but St George's
Cross was originally the flag of Genoa and was adopted by England and
the City of London in 1190 in order for English ships entering the Mediterranean
to benefit from the protection of the powerful Genoese fleet.
The maritime Republic of Genoa was rising and going to becoming, together
with Venice, one of the most important powers in the world. The English
Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for the privilege
of flying the flag. The cross of St George would eventually become the
official Flag of England.
The
red cross acted as a symbol for many Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries and it became associated with St George and England, along
with other countries and cities (such as Georgia, Milan and the Republic
of Genoa), which claimed him as their patron saint and used his cross
as a banner. It remained in national use until 1707, when the Union
Flag (also known as the Union Jack) that English and Scottish ships
had used at sea since 1606, was adopted to unite the whole of Great
Britain under a common flag.
English Coat of Arms ( Three Lions)
The
arms of England are gules, three lions passant guardant or; the earliest
surviving record of their use was by Richard I (Richard the Lionheart)
in the late twelfth century.
Since union with Scotland and Northern Ireland, the arms of England
are no longer used on their own; instead they form a part of the conjoined
Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom.
However, both the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket
Board use logos based on the three lions. In recent years, it has been
common to see banners of the arms flown at English football matches,
in the same way the Lion Rampant is flown in Scotland.
In 1996, Three Lions was the official song of the England football
team for the 1996 European Football Championship.
The English Rose
The
English rose is a traditional heraldic emblem of England and it takes
its name and origins from the Tudor dynasty. It is often called the
Tudor rose and was adopted as a national emblem of England around the
time of the Wars of the Roses.
When Henry Tudor took the crown of England from Richard III in battle,
he brought about the end of the Wars of the Roses between the House
of Lancaster (Red Rose) and the House of York (White Rose). Henry's
father was Edmund Tudor from the House of Richmond, His mother was Margaret
Beaufort from the House of Lancaster; he married Elizabeth of York to
bring all factions together.
In doing so he created the Tudor rose, conjoining the White Rose of
York and the Red Rose of Lancaster.
In heraldry, the rose is depicted as white on red if placed on a field
of a metal (gold or silver), or red on white if placed on a field of
a colour, due to the rule of tincture.
The Oak Tree
The
oak tree forms an often-repeated motif because it is so distinctive:
its shape, acorns, oak-apples, the reddish tinge of the leaves in early
spring, the instantly-recognisable scalloped leaves, and its repeated
place in English history.
After the second battle of Worcester in 1651, the most famous specimen
in England was the Boscobel oak, in which the defeated prince Charles
Stuart hid to escape the Commonwealth soldiers. The oak, became a symbol
of royalism and the return of monarchy with Charles's English coronation
in 1661.
The royal oak is not necessarily a 'folk' symbol, however. of the many
images of Charles and the oak tree, those which fulfil the folk remit
are those which subsume the otherwise elite figure of the future king
within the tree. A variety of images of Charles and the Boscobel oak
can be found here.
The Palace of Westminster
The
Palace of Westminster, stands on the site where Edward the Confessor
had the original palace built in the first half of the eleventh century.
In 1547 the royal residence was moved to Whitehall Palace, but the Lords
continued to meet at Westminster, while the commons met in St. Stephen’s
Chapel. Since these early times the Palace of Westminster has been home
to the English Parliament, now known collectively as the Houses of Parliament.
In 1834 a fire destroyed much of the old palace, all that remained
was the chapel crypt, The Jewel Tower and Westminster Hall. Lord Melbourne,
the then Prime Minister, saved the great hall by arranging for the fire
engines to be brought right into the hall and personally supervising
the fire fighting operation.
The new Palace was constructed during 1840 and 1860 in the Gothic style
of architecture.
The Big Ben clock-tower is 316 feet tall. The clock itself weighs over
13 tons. The figures on the clock face are about 2 feet long, the minute
spaces are 1ft. square; and the copper minute hands are 14ft. Long.
Select an English county to view local riding and equestrian facilities
in that area.
Bedfordshire - Berkshire
- Buckinghamshire - Cambridgeshire
- Cheshire - Cornwall
- Cumbria - Derbyshire
- Devon - Dorset
- Durham
- Essex - Gloucestershire
- Hampshire - Herefordshire
- Hertfordshire - Kent
- Leicestershire - Lincolnshire
- London - Merseyside
- Middlesex - Norfolk
- Northamptonshire - Northumberland
- Nottinghamshire - Oxfordshire
- Rutland - Staffordshire
- Shropshire - Somerset
- Suffolk - Surrey - Sussex
- Tyne & Wear - Warwickshire
- Wiltshire - Worcestershire
- Yorkshire
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