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Winner's cheese wheel served up to rough sleepers

Issac Tartaglia/PA Wire and Sam Jones/PA Wire Image of a woman in a green charity shirt and yellow trouser holding up a large round cheese with people watching at the side of a very steep hill. The second image is of a woman in a commercial kitchen grating cheese into a metal bowlIssac Tartaglia/PA Wire and Sam Jones/PA Wire
Ava Sender Logan bagged the wheel of Double Gloucester in the women's cheese rolling race in Gloucestershire

A wheel of Double Gloucester won in the annual traditional cheese rolling races in Gloucestershire is to be served up to rough sleepers in north London.

First-timer Ava Sender Logan, 20, managed to bag the 7lb (3kg) cheese in the women's race last month by tumbling down the almost vertical Cooper's Hill in Brockworth.

The London student, who has donated her "delicious" prize to the Refugee Community Kitchen, said she is "really happy people can try it".

Sam Jones, the charity's co-founder, said: "We are deeply indebted to Ava for putting her life and limbs on the line to get the cheese."

The Refugee Community Kitchen supports displaced people in northern France and homeless people in London and Edinburgh.

The highlights from the 2025 Gloucestershire cheese rolling races

Miss Sender Logan, who volunteers for the kitchen, said donating her prize cheese was a "full-circle moment".

"It's really sweet," she said.

"The cheese has travelled from Gloucestershire to Oxford to London to the kitchen."

The biochemistry student, who was the fastest down the 1:2 gradient, said she did not remember most of her downhill journey, and was stunned when she won.

"I was trying to hold my head, stay on my feet as much as I could, but there's only so much you can do," she said.

"I was bruised, I was battered but there were no broken bones."

Lynn Rusk/PA Wire Image of a group of people cheering in a commercial kitchen, with central female figure holding a round wheel of cheese.Lynn Rusk/PA Wire
Miss Sender Logan, who volunteers for the Refugee Community Kitchen, said donating her prize cheese was a "full-circle moment"

The charity, set up by four friends in 2015, has served thousands of meals in London and Calais over the last 10 years.

Mr Jones said up to 90 people in and round Archway in London will be able to "scoff" on the winning cheese wheel.

"It's a really nice kind of full circle to have the cheese that rolled down the hill, the Double Gloucester that's going into a cauliflower and broccoli cheese that's going out to the street," he said.

"It really fills us full of joy and satisfaction to be able to do that."

The Gloucestershire cheese-rolling races have been held for centuries and are thought to have their roots in a heathen festival to celebrate the return of spring.

Cooper's Hill's is one of Gloucestershire's steepest slopes. The cheese can reach speeds of up to 70mph as it is chased downhill by the contestants.

This year, there were seven races in all, two of them in memory of former cheese rolling winners who have since died.

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