The Kop Hill Climb

click Charity Events for other fund raising for charity

Princes Risborough Council restarted the Kop Hill Climb as an amateur event as part of The Princes Risborough Festival in 2009. In autumn 2023 tickets were put on sale for the 2024 event, stating that since 2009 the funds raised for local charities has exceeded 1 million pounds.

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Hallmark 2011 Kop Hill Climb By Norman Tyler

The weekend of 24th and 25^th September 2011 saw this annual event It is one of the oldest such sites in the country.

Last year 350 vehicles climbed the hill and there were 300 additional classics in the paddock. There were over 8000 spectators and £30,000 was raised for charity. This year was a real record breaker with perfect weather and over 11,500 spectators, apparently. he Rotary volunteers did a marvellous job of running & manning it. They made every kind of arrangements for Con Baker's and our experience!

John Tyler arranged for Lacey Green’s oldest resident Con Baker to be welcomed by the Kop Hill Climb organisers, who got Con a ride in a vintage car even older than her 103 years!

The car, of 1901 running on steam, wasn't able to tackle climbing the hill, so it & Con didn't.

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Article in Hallmark by Ian Kelloway. Modern Charity Event.

The Kop Hill Climb as we know it today is a very popular evet that takes place over a long weekend in September that raises thousands of pounds for charity. STARTED in 1910's ROAD RACE with 1 in 4 GRADIENT with HUMPS. So why is the Kop Hill Climb so famous amongst car enthusiasts and why are we writing about it in the Lacey Green Hallmark?

First let’s go back a couple of centuries and Kop Hill was just like a number of other stony and bumpy cart tracks that led up to the open escarpment and in fact it's a 1 in 4 gradient in places and early cars found it a real challenge. One particular hump still apparent today was infamous for launching riders into the air. Hill climbing on public roads over the country was first established in the 1910s and by the 1920s was becoming a very popular spectacle sport and with Princes Risborough having an easy rail link to London hundreds and perhaps thousands of spectators would turn up to watch, this made  the RAC who governed the sport very uneasy

ACCIDENT CAUSED BAN

On March 24^th 1925 the inevitable happened with crowds lining both sides of the road a car lost control and ran into the watching spectators, luckily the worst injury was a broken leg. The RAC stewards stopped the race and within a week declined to grant any further permits for the time being, however the ban was never lifted until initially revived in 1990 by the Risborough Town Council as part of the Risborough festival and then ten years later in 2009 as we know it today.

CIRCUIT RACING DEVELOPED

After the accident in 1925 racing car enthusiasts had to find other ways to pursue their sport, firstly  they looked to private land owners which then led onto circuit racing which then developed eventually to the Grand Prix as we know it today. So without the Kop Hill accident I wonder would motor racing be as we know it today

WITHIN LACEY GREEN PARISH BOUNDARY

So why are we writing in the Hallmark about Kop Hill, well the first half of the climb represents the Parish boundary between Lacey Green and Princes Risborough. Midway the road crosses the ancient boundary known as The Black Hedge a 1000-year old Saxon border and the oldest recorded boundary in the country, here our Parish boundary heads east. From here Kop Hill is then the boundary between Princes Risborough and Great and Little Hampden parishes but from the crest of the hill to the junction with Peters Lane, the climb sits firmly in Hampden’s parish.

ELSIE RIXON from GREEN HAILEY FARM

Lastly I was told by the late local historian Dennis Claydon that my grandmother Elsie Chilton (Rixon back in 1925) and the long time post lady of Lacey Green actually attended the injured as she was on hand as a qualified first aider. I have no proof of this but I am sure Dennis was right, what I have got are certificates from the second world war stating that she had passed her tests for air raids precautions and first aid for air raid casualties. So presumably she was the first aider for Lacey Green in the event of any air raids. click Frank & Elsie Chilton for more about Elsie, also click Green Hailey Farm