A report on Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Faringdon

The Vale of White Horse is a local government district of Oxfordshire in England.

Faringdon is a historic market town in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England, 18 mi south-west of Oxford, 10 mi north-west of Wantage and 12 mi east-north-east of Swindon.

It was historically a north-west projection of Berkshire.

The ceremonial county borders Warwickshire to the north-west, Northamptonshire to the north-east, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, Wiltshire to the south-west and Gloucestershire to the west.

Faringdon was Berkshire's westernmost town until the 1974 boundary changes transferred its administration to Oxfordshire.

All its zones south of the Thames: the Vale of White Horse and parts of South Oxfordshire were within the historic county of Berkshire, including the highest point, the 261 m White Horse Hill.

The historic county, therefore, includes territory that is now administered by the Vale of White Horse and parts of South Oxfordshire in Oxfordshire, but excludes Caversham, Slough and five less populous settlements in the east of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

The towns of Abingdon, Didcot, Faringdon, Wallingford and Wantage were transferred to Oxfordshire, the six places joining came from Buckinghamshire.

The towns (and predecessor urban districts) are, in size order, Abingdon, Faringdon and Wantage.

The Vale of White Horse district and parts of the South Oxfordshire administrative district south of the River Thames were historically part of Berkshire, but in 1974 Abingdon, Didcot, Faringdon, Wallingford and Wantage were added to the administrative county of Oxfordshire under the Local Government Act 1972.