Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling

Few food traditions anywhere are quite as eccentric as this one: once a year, a large wheel of Double Gloucester cheese is released to roll down the notoriously steep Cooper's Hill, and competitors chase after it, tumbling down the slope in pursuit — the first person to cross the finish line (rarely the one who actually catches the cheese, which can reach speeds over 70mph) wins it.

The origins are genuinely unclear, possibly tracing back centuries as a way of maintaining grazing rights on the hill, but today it draws an international crowd for what's become one of Britain's most distinctively strange annual traditions.