Cheese rolling at Cooper's Hill
A cheese of about 3.5kg, a hill with a slope of about 50 per cent, and a crowd at the bottom. The Cooper's Hill cheese rolling is one of the Cotswolds' best-known customs, and its most reckless.
· 4 minute read
Cooper's Hill is a wooded hill near Brockworth, on the Cotswold edge east of Gloucester. On the spring bank holiday Monday a Double Gloucester cheese of about 3.5kg is sent rolling down a course of about 180m, at a slope of about 50 per cent, and the competitors chase it. The first to the bottom wins the cheese. The Cotswold Way crosses Cooper's Hill on its stage from Birdlip to Painswick.
How old is it?
Written records of the race go back to the early nineteenth century, though the custom is probably older. Theories that it began as a pagan rite or to protect grazing rights are only theories. For many years the cheeses have come from the Smart family's Gloucestershire dairy, first made by Diana Smart and now by her son Rod and his family.
Unofficial and dangerous
Since 2010 the event has had no official organiser: growing crowds raised safety fears, and it has run unofficially ever since. Injuries among the runners are common. In 2013 Diana Smart, then 86, was told she might be held liable for injuries, and a substitute cheese was rolled that year; real cheese came back the year after. In May 2025, and again before the race in May 2026, Tewkesbury Borough Council's safety advisory group declared the event unsafe, because no one had sent in plans to keep the public safe and at past races ambulances had struggled to reach the site. If you go, watch from a safe place, and think hard before running.
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When
The race is held on the spring bank holiday Monday. That is the last Monday in May. Because the event is unofficial, no organiser announces it; the date is simply the tradition. It last ran on 25 May 2026. Our page for the Cooper's Hill cheese rolling has the next date, and our guide to the Cotswolds in May has the rest of the month.
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