Hot off the press — reported in BBC News Cambridgeshire — “Stilton cheese rolling attracts visitors back“:
• Richard Landy, local historian: “It’s been a cracking day out and the whole event was so loud my head’s still pounding. It’s certainly gone from being a quirky idea to a massive event for the village.”
• Olive Main, chairman of the Stilton Community Association: “It started as a small village event and we now get coverage from as far away as Australia. After the A1 by-passed us, traffic through the village stopped and the cheese rolling has certainly helped resurrect passing trade for at least one day a year.”
Teams roll blocks of wood from old telegraph poles that have been painted to look like blue-veined Stilton cheese. Wood is used because rounds of cheese would not survive being rolled along the race course.
Stilton, which is on the Great North Road (A-1) between Huntingdon and Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, got rid of traffic jams when a bypass was built on the A-1. But local merchants on High Street suffered a decline in customers. Cheese Rolling was invented by two pub owners to attract visitors.
