When the track was being built in 1906/1907 the naturally rising Member's Hill was heavily excavated on its west side to form the finishing straight and on the north and east sides to build the Members' Banking. The hill provided an outstanding vantage point from where spectators could see almost all of the track.

As can be seen from this photograph taken around 1910 there were grandstands and tiers of seating. To some extent the foundations of these grandstands still survive. Certainly many of the oak trees are still to be seen, the age of which I would put in some cases at about 150 years.

At the top of the hill the entire restaurant complex, two well built large brick buildings, still stands. 

We are scheduled to restore the restaurant building leading up to the forthcoming 1907 centenary with the intention of using it, possibly in collaboration with another car club as a combined club house, and extension to the museum.  It also makes a good place to relocate Brooklands archive materials out of the flood plain in which the main museum complex currently stands. It is still early days for this project which is expected to cost in excess of £500,000 but time will tell. The photograph on the left was taken in March 2002 at the entrance to the museum complex from a very similar position to the 1910 photograph. As can be seen there is presently slightly more clutter from indigenous birch trees and scrub which we regularly coppice and manage in a way intended to preserve the original feel of the hill.

In 1909 the Test Hill, a strip of concrete 352 feet long with an average gradient of 1 in 5.027 and a gradient for the top third of 1 in 4, was constructed. This hill was built to test the ability of cars both to climb steep hills and also to test their brakes coming down.  The first car to attempt the climb failed ignominiously but on March 26th 1909 the first Hill Certificate was issued to Kidner's 20hp Vauxhall which climbed it from a standing start in 15.041 seconds. 

Today the Test Hill (seen above in March 2002) still represents an eagerly accepted challenge for many drivers of period cars, featuring strongly in many car club events - not the least being our annual Brooklands Society Reunion. The section of road in the photograph shown curving to the right is the part of the Campbell Circuit which is now used as an entrance road to the museum.

You can see many photographs of Brooklands period cars on the hill in our Reunion sections; this one taken in 2000 being Keith Schellenberg in the 8 litre Bentley based Barnato-Hassan Special - one of the fastest cars around the Brooklands Outer Circuit track. Click on the photo to see an enlargement

As can be seen the surface of the Test Hill is still in very good condition, probably because being heavily sloped it was not a particularly suitable surface to dump scrap metal on or drive heavy goods vehicles over in the two decades after the war.

Click on the links below for the home page and then go to the Annual reunion sections for more hill photographs featuring all marques of period cars photographed over several years.

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