The Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake is an annual event held on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper’s Hill, near Gloucester in England. People throwing themselves down Cooper’s Hill with reckless abandon with the goal of collecting a large cheese wheel. Injuries this year included a dislocated shoulder as well as numerous grazes and bruises.
Chris Anderson, 30, broke the all-time record this year for the most cheeses won by taking home his 22nd Double Gloucester cheese. Â Mr. Anderson suffering a torn calf in his winning bid for his 22 cheese.
It is believed that the origin of the event go back to pagan times when there was a custom of rolling objects down the hill. It is thought that bundles of burning brushwood were rolled down the hill to represent the birth of the New Year after winter.Â
The first written evidence of cheese rolling is found from a message written to the Gloucester town crier in 1826, though even then it was apparent the event was an old tradition. Each year, the event becomes more and more popular, with contestants coming from all across the world to compete, or even simply to watch. In 1993, fifteen people were injured, four seriously, chasing cheeses down the one-in-three hill.