The banks where wild times grew

In the early years of the century racing on main roads was strictly forbidden. When a British victory in the 1902 Gordon Bennett Race obliged us to host the next year's event, it had to be held in Ireland. The idea for Brooklands occurred to the wealthy landowner and motoring enthusiast, Hugh Fortescue Locke King, while he was watching Italy's premier event, the Targa Florio in Sicily in 1906. Italian cars and drivers finished first and second, and a Frenchman third. Why were there no British cars in the race at all, he wondered? If the Continent had open roads for rac ing, he determined that Britain should have a purpose-built track.

For the site, Locke King chose part of his Surrey estate, south of his home at Weybridge. It was unpromising marshy land with a few smallholdings devoted to poultry.

Brooklands (named after Locke King's house) was a most ambitious project. The concrete track was 100 feet wide, roughly oval and 2.75 miles in circumference. At the north east end there was a steep banking which rose nearly 29 feet above ground level. This came to be known as the Members'Banking, while at the other end was the lower Byfieet Banking. Even this, at 21 feet 10in, loomed over the roofs of a row of cottages beneath it. The 200ft-long Hennebique Bridge over the River Wey was reputedly Britain's first use of reinforced concrete.

The circuit was designed by Colonel Holden of the Royal Engineers. He planned the angle of the banking so that even at the top a stationary car would not topple over. At any speed from 30 to 100mph there was a natural line at which no steering would be required. Holden estimated that the track would be safe at up to 120mph, but the final lap record, set in 1935 by John Cobb, was 143.44mph. (Jacques Villeneuve's fastest lap at Silverstone last weekend was 127mph.)

The Brooklands Automobile Racing Club was formed in December 1906. Lord Lonsdale was president and my father vice-president; committee members included Prince Francis of Teck (brother of the Princess of Wales, who became Queen Mary in 1910), the Dukes of Beaufort and Westminster, and Lords Churchill, Dudley, Essex, Northcliffe, Sefton and Tollemache. Considered an extension of horse racing, motor racing attracted a blue-blooded governing body.

The official opening was on June 17, 1907, when speeches were made at a luncheon in the pavilion and cars paraded on the track. Some drivers could not resist the temptation of taking their cars to the limit. The fastest was Warwick Wright's 80hp Darracq which roared around near the top of the banking, reaching speeds estimated by The Autocar at between 80 and 90mph.

The motoring press enthused about the new track, but not everyone was impressed, however. The diarist Lady Mary Monkswell wrote in July, "Mr and Mrs Locke King came to dinner. They have been building this awful motor track and are so hated by their neighbours ... that hardly anyone will speak to them." When she visited it, she reported: "The motor track is a perfect nightmare. A more unenjoyable place to come on a hot Sunday afternoon I cannot imagine." She did concede, however: "The enormous size of the arena, almost like a great Roman work, and the controlled strength of the motors, prevents this great horrid place from being vulgar."

Even before racing began, the track saw the first British 24-hour record attempt. S.F. Edge drove a 60hp Napier accompanied by two similar cars on June 28-29. Finding his headlamps next to useless he sent out for 352 red lanterns from every roadmaking firm in London. These were placed around the track every ten yards. At the end of the 24 hours he had covered 1,581 miles at an average speed of 65.95 mph. a world record that remained unbeaten for 18 years.

The first race meeting on July 6 was a bit of an anticlimax. The cars seemed dwarfed by the expanse of concrete, and although speeds of 90mph were reached, from a distance they seemed very slow. Identification was difficult as in horse-racing tradition the drivers wore jockey's smocks. Numbers were considered vulgar.

Complaints of inadequate catering and delays in getting in and out of the track did not add to the day's success, though the crowd of more than 13,000, each paying half a crown, was encouraging. There were six races, and prize money was very high. The main event carried a prize of £1,400, equivalent to at least £30,000 today.

Three more meetings were held in 1907; at the insistence of the starter A.V. Ebblewhite, who remained in his post until the track closed in August 1939, the coloured smocks were replaced by numbers on the cars, and handicapping was introduced. Within a few years Brooklands was established as the most important motoring venue in Britain, and also attracted many visitors from Europe and America.

Brooklands reached its peak of popularity in the late 1920s, after which it began to be eclipsed by the growing number of road circuits in Europe. By 1939 the surface of the old track was becoming increasingly bumpy. It had been a centre of flying almost from the outset, and during World War 11 a total of 2,515 Wellington bombers were built at the Vickers factory. Part of the banking was demolished to allow the Wellingtons out, and the track was sold to Vickers in 1946.

Among those who agreed to the sale was Sir Malcolm Campbell who had competed so often there. Happily the track is still used for reunions., although no racing can take place, it has been greatly cleaned up in recent years, thanks to the work of the Brooklands Society. Thirty acres of original buildings form the Brooklands Museum, which was opened by Prince Michael of Kent in 1991.