Brockworth is a village and parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury,

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

, England, situated on the old

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

that connects the City of Gloucester with

Barnwood Barnwood is a suburb and former civil parish in the city of Gloucester, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It lies about east of the centre of the city. Barnwood was originally a small village on the Roman roads in Britannia, Roman r ...

. It is located southeast of central Gloucester, southwest of

Cheltenham Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...

and north of

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the ...

. The population taken at the 2011 census was 7,387. The population increased to 9,422 at the 2021 Census. Since the mid-20th century, Brockworth has been known locally for the annual rolling of Double Gloucester cheese down Cooper's Hill. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the nearby village of Hucclecote at the Gloster Aircraft Company produced the famous

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

fighter, and following the war it gained renewed fame for producing several notable aircraft, including Britain's first

jet aircraft A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by one or more jet engines. Whereas the engines in Propeller (aircraft), propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much ...

, which was test flown here. Brockworth is also the birthplace of actor, comedian and writer

Simon Pegg Simon John Pegg (; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ''Spaced'' (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. He and Wright co-wrote the ...

Governance

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

of the same name exists in Tewkesbury Borough. The population and area of this ward are identical to that shown above. Brockworth has a parish council.

History

The name Brockworth is derived from the

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

name Brocwurthin, combining "broc" for brook and "wurthin" for enclosure. Settlement is believed to have occurred around 600 AD, after the defeat of the Gloucester-based Romano British at the Battle of Dyrham in 577 AD. Older, Roman remains have been found locally but they indicate an estate rather than a village. Also, the Saxon-derived name suggests that the first settlers were Saxons. The oldest surviving building in the village is the Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

St George's Church, which dates back to 1142. The present structure has elements from then until the nineteenth century. Adjacent to this is the Tudor

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

Brockworth Court Brockworth Court is a Tudor house in the village of Brockworth, Gloucestershire, England. Dating from the 16th century, it is a Grade II* listed building. House The original house was granted to Llanthony Secunda Priory in the 12th century and ...

, a Grade II*

, that was built between 1534 and 1539 for Richard Hart, the last prior of

Llanthony Priory Llanthony Priory () is a partly ruined former Augustinians, Augustinian priory in the secluded Vale of Ewyas, a steep-sided once-glaciated valley within the Black Mountains, Wales, Black Mountains area of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Mo ...

. Brockworth was the third in a series of rural villages located along an old

following a more-or-less straight line to the inland port city of

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West England, South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean ...

. Its original semi-remote location made it ideal for the location of an aircraft factory (now the Gloucester Business Park) where aeroplanes could be built and tested without worries about noise. Also, land availability made the area ideal for a flight test airfield.

Gloster Aircraft Company

The Gloster Aircraft Company was first formed at Hucclecote,

in 1915, as the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company. In 1926 the name of the company was abbreviated to Gloster Aircraft Company because customers outside of the United Kingdom found the original name too difficult to pronounce. In May 1934 the company was purchased by Hawker Aircraft but the company name was unchanged. From 1921 the company produced the following aircraft types: Sparrowhawk, Nighthawk, Nightjar, Grouse, Grebe, Gamecock, Gorcock, Guan, Gambit, Gnatsnapper, Gauntlet, Gladiator,

;

Hawker Typhoon The Hawker Typhoon was a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft. It was intended to be a medium-high altitude interceptor aircraft, interceptor, as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane, but several design problems we ...

;

Gloster Meteor The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneere ...

and

Gloster Javelin The Gloster Javelin is a twin-engined all-weather interceptor aircraft designed and produced by the Gloster Aircraft Company. It was operated by the Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s and was the final aircraft design to b ...

and its runway became famous for the first flight of Sir

Frank Whittle Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with co-creating the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 fo ...

turbo-jet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...

aircraft.

Brockworth bombed

The Gloster Aircraft Company (known locally as GAC) drew upon an employment pool from the surrounding area and it was responsible for much of the growth in the development of housing estates which was halted by the outbreak of

. During the war Brockworth and the surrounding area were bombed by the

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

in an attempt to halt the production of aircraft.

1939–45 WWII production

As the pre-war biplane Gladiator was rapidly rendered obsolete by faster monoplanes the Brockworth factory was available to manufacture Hawker aircraft. In 1939 the company built 1,000

s in the first 12 months of

and it delivered the last of 2,750 Hurricanes in 1942. Production was then switched to building 3,330

s for the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

. On 8 April 1941 the first test flight of the Gloster E28/39 with a single turbo-jet engine (invented by Sir

) took off from the company's flight test airfield at Brockworth. This was followed by the twin-engined

, the only jet to be used by the Allied Forces during World War II. The speed of the Meteor enabled it to fly alongside V1 flying bombs, tip them off course, to crash before they could arrive at their London target. In 1945 the Meteor gained a world speed record of and it was eventually put into service by 12 nations.

Post-WWII developments

Following

it took the area many years to revive; but after the mid-1950s, renewed housing growth, the development of motorways and

redistricting Redistricting in the United States is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. For the United States House of Representatives, and state legislatures, redistricting occurs after each ten-year census. The U.S. Constitution in Art ...

eventually changed the entire look of Brockworth and what were once adjoining villages. In 1952 the Brockworth factory produced the two seat, delta-winged

which was developed as an all weather fighter that could fly above 50,000 feet at almost the speed of sound. In 1962 the Gloster Aircraft Company closed down and its once famous runway fell victim of redistricting and it is now within the boundary of Hucclecote. The airfield has now been redeveloped as the modern Gloucester Business Park, with additional housing developments continuing to grow around it.

Cooper's Hill

Cooper's Hill () is a local landmark within the parish of Brockworth, which is long, and with a

slope In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a Line (mathematics), line is a number that describes the direction (geometry), direction of the line on a plane (geometry), plane. Often denoted by the letter ''m'', slope is calculated as the ratio of t ...

of around 50 per cent (26.6 degrees). It is known in BritainCheese Rolling.
BBC Gloucestershire, 2005. Retrieved 31 May 2013
Archived here
and beyond for its annual cheese rolling contest. A large round cheese is rolled down the steep slope of the hill and chased by a group of "runners", who in fact spend most of their brief descent to the bottom of the hill falling and tumbling. Two hundred years ago this was part of a larger mid-summer festival with other activities and competitions, but the event is now confined to the cheese-rolling and is held in May during the Spring Bank-holiday Monday. It is usually said to have originated as a

pagan Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the ...

festival celebrating the arrival of summer, fertility, or both. The contest was the subject of the

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

programme ''The Great Cheese Chase'' broadcast in 2018. The Witcombe Festival was originally held at the bottom of Coopers Hill but since 2018 has been in Brockworth Road.

References

Sources

Gloster Javelin pictures and storyCooper's Hill Annual Cheese Rolling and WakeBBC coverage of the 2004 Cheese Rolling event

Injuries suffered at 2004 annual Cheese Rolling.Video of the 2014 Cheese Rolling at Cooper's Hill
where the E28/39 aircraft, with a jet engine designed by Sir Frank Whittle, became airborne in taxiing runs for the first time. {{authority control Villages in Gloucestershire Borough of Tewkesbury