Cheese rolling is an annual event held in May at Cooper's Hill near Gloucester. Competitors race down the hill after a Double Gloucester cheese, and the first person over the line wins the cheese.
Due to the steepness and uneven surface of the hill there are often injuries, ranging from sprained ankles to broken bones and concussion. Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling has been summarized as "twenty young men chase a cheese off a cliff and tumble 200 yards to the bottom, where they are scraped up by paramedics and packed off to hospital".
Accurate information is hard to come by, but the tradition is at least 200 years old, and may date back to Roman times, and may have been a pagan healing ritual .
External links
