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

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England, situated on the old Roman road that connects the City of Gloucester with Barnwood. It is located 4 miles (6.5 km) southeast of central Gloucester, 6 miles (9.5 km) southwest of Cheltenham and 11.5 miles (18.5 km) north of Stroud. 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 Gloucester is a traditional, semi-hard cheese which has been made in Gloucestershire, England, since the 16th century. There are two varieties of the cheese, Single and Double; both are traditionally made from milk from Gloucester cattle. Both ...

down Cooper's Hill. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

the nearby village of Hucclecote at the

Gloster Aircraft Company The Gloster Aircraft Company was a British aircraft manufacturer from 1917 to 1963. Founded as the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company Limited during the First World War, with the aircraft construction activities of H H Martyn & Co Ltd of Chelte ...

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 b ...

fighter, and following the war it gained renewed fame for producing several notable aircraft, including Britain's first jet aircraft, which was test flown here. Brockworth is also the birthplace of actor, comedian and writer

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

Governance

An electoral ward of the same name exists in

Tewkesbury Borough Tewkesbury is a local government district and borough in Gloucestershire, England. Named after its main town, Tewkesbury, the borough had a population of 85,800 in 2015. Other places in the borough include Ashchurch, Bishop's Cleeve, Churchdo ...

. 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 "wurthin" for enclosure and "broc" for brook. Settlement is believed to have occurred around 600 AD, after the defeat of the Gloucester-based Romano British at the

Battle of Dyrham The Battle of Deorham (or Dyrham) is claimed as a decisive military encounter between the West Saxons and the Britons of the West Country in 577. The battle, which was a major victory for Wessex's forces led by Ceawlin and his son, Cuthwine, r ...

in 577 AD. Older,

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

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 or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

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 held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

Brockworth Court Brockworth Court is a Tudor house in the village of Brockworth, Gloucestershire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. House The original house was granted to Llanthony Secunda Priory in the 12th Century and remained as a Priors res ...

, a Grade II*

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

Llanthony Priory Llanthony Priory ( cy, Priordy Llanddewi Nant Hodni) is a partly ruined former Augustinian priory in the secluded Vale of Ewyas, a steep-sided once-glaciated valley within the 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 Roman road following a more-or-less straight line to the inland port city of

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

. Its original semi-remote location made it ideal for the location of an aircraft factory (now the

Gloucester Business Park Gloucester Business Park is a business park situated in Brockworth on the outskirts of Gloucester, England with close links to the M5 and A417. Current residents of the business park include Direct Wines, Horizon Nuclear Power, Ageas, NHS and D ...

) where aeroplanes could be built and tested without worries about noise. Also, land availability made the area ideal for a

flight test Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...

airfield.

Gloster Aircraft Company

The

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 is a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft. It was intended to be a medium-high altitude interceptor, as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane, but several design problems were encountered and i ...

;

Gloster Meteor The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies of World War II, 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 turb ...

and

Gloster Javelin The Gloster Javelin is a twin-engined T-tailed delta-wing subsonic night and all-weather interceptor aircraft that served with Britain's Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. The last aircraft design to bear the Gloster name ...

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 inventing 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 branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

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 United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

. 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 606 mph (975 km/h) 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 A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

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

delta-wing A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (Δ). Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the Jet Age, when it proved suitab ...

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 Hucclecote is a suburb in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, comprising a ward (population 8,826) in the City of Gloucester. It is located on the periphery of the city, between Barnwood and Brockworth, along Ermin Way, an old Roman road connectin ...

. 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, and 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 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 network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

programme ''The Great Cheese Chase'' broadcast in 2018. The

Witcombe Festival Witcombe Festival is an annual music festival held in Brockworth in Gloucestershire, UK over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Previously known as Witcombe Cider Festival the festival dropped the word cider from the title to become Witcombe Fes ...

was originally held at the bottom of Coopers Hill but since 2018 has been in Brockworth Road.

References

Brockworth community library (31456501047)

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