GLOUCESTER, England – The official name of this event in Gloucestershire, England, is the Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, and it is held on the Spring Bank holiday every year (originally on Whit Monday). It involves a 7-9lb Double Gloucester cheese, sometimes replaced by a foam replica. The event is straightforward: the cheese gets a one-second head start and everyone else chases after it downhill. The first person to cross the finish line wins the cheese, and there are a number of races throughout the day, including separate ones for men and for women.
Cooper’s Hill is extremely steep, with a gradient of 1:2. The cheese itself is obviously solid and can reach speeds of up to 70 mph, so the possibility of it taking out a spectator is not unrealistic, and fractures among the chasers are not uncommon either: 15 people were seriously injured in 1993, 4 of them seriously. One participant suffered spinal injuries but nonetheless returned in a future year. Brockworth Rugby Club gathers at the bottom of the hill to ensure that people are enabled to actually stop.
A view from the top of Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, where the famous Cheese-Rolling takes place. This picture is taken from the start point of the race, and the finish is visible below. The actual running surface is concave, and hence cannot be seen from this point. [Photo Credit: Pete Verdon – Public Domain]
Buns and sweets are distributed at the top of the hill by the Master of Ceremonies. The current cheese rolling is somewhat scaled-down compared to the event in the 1800s, when it was accompanied by wrestling, gurning competitions, and a shin-kicking contest. However, once confined to inhabitants of nearby Brockhurst, cheese rolling now has an international dimension with participants coming from as far afield as Canada and Japan.
When did this start? The first textual evidence of cheese rolling comes in a communication to the local town crier in 1826 but the event is generally considered to be a lot older, perhaps up to 600 years of age. There have been suggestions that it is well over 1000 years old and that similar celebrations took place at the Cerne Abbas Giant and the Uffington White Horse. Hypotheses that it comes from an ancient Celtic rite – the wheel representing the sun, the thrown buns being distributed for fertility and so on – must remain in the realms of speculation, as do theories that it dates from Phoenician traders in ancient times (the Phoenicians not actually being known for rolling cheeses downhill). The idea of it, if not the practice, is popular among British Pagans, possibly more for its spirit of mild lawlessness and anarchy rather than any religious attachment.
Jean Jeffries, a long-term resident of the area, says that her family history traces cheese rolling anecdotally back to the 1700s.
“I think maybe it was a ‘rite of passage’ for local lads who practiced all year and treated the hill with some respect, knowing the route to take. It has only been a throw-yourself-off-the-top event in more recent history.”
The event has proved contentious, rather obviously, due to health and safety concerns. In 2009 it was cancelled altogether, causing a local furor, but in 2010 residents of Brockworth flung a smaller cheese down the hill, as a matter of principle, and in 2011 there was a Save the Cheese Roll campaign.
However, we should be clear that those concerns do not, surprisingly, relate to breaking your leg because you’re running after an enormous cheese. Rather, they had to do with site capacity. Organisers reported in the 2000s that over 15,000 people tried to attend.
The Guardian reported that Robin Hammond, of the Really Exciting Adventure Club, said: “I do understand the issues about the crowd, but wish that the local authorities had worked harder to ensure that we don’t lose another part of our English culture to issues of crowd health and safety. Admittedly, last year had a record turnout to the event, which only goes to show how great this event is, with it being watched and talked about worldwide. I am sure that the local area benefits from the custom the crowds bring, so surely the local authorities have had time enough to consider the health and safety of this event.”
A Master of Ceremonies at the Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, holding one of the famous Double-Gloucester cheeses. [Photo from the Warwick University Real Ale Society, released under GFDL – CC BY-SA 3.0]
Participant Mike Smith told the Guardian when confronted with cancellation some years ago:
“Dreadfully disappointed with the news. As a cheese-roller of many years, I look forward to the chance to really injure myself each year. I have no idea how I’ll hurt myself this year now.”
The cheese rolling was in the news again in late May 2023, due to the lack of police and paramedics to cover the event. This has apparently resulted from ‘no formal plans’ being submitted to the local constabulary by the organisers. However, it went ahead on May 29th, with at least some medical assistance since the woman who won it, 19-year-old Canadian Delaney Irving, only realised she had won when she woke up in the medical tent, having been knocked out during the chase itself. She told the Guardian that the race was “good … now that I remember it”.
Twenty-eight-year-old Mancuian Matt Crolla won the first race, commenting that “I don’t think you can train for it, can you? It’s just being an idiot.”
The Guardian also asked Japanese contestant Ryoya Minami why he’d entered and he replied “Because I like cheese.”
Thus at the time of writing, the cheese roll is still going strong, despite concerns about its safety – if not an explicitly Pagan custom these days, whatever the truth about its mysterious origins, surely one of the most eccentric customs in the British folk calendar.
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