It is a sobering thought that Silverstone may never have become the venue for the British Grand Prix but for an animated drinking session in a Worcestershire public house. Fresh from a satisfactory day’s competition at the nearby Shelsley Walsh hill climb, a group of drivers were in good spirits at the Mitre Oak, Ombersley, one evening in September 1947 and were discussing where they might be able to race next. Their options appeared strictly limited, Brooklands having been sold and Donington Park still being cluttered with military vehicles. Then one of their number, an enthusiast by the name of Maurice Geoghegan, happened to mention a virtually disused airfield near his home village of Silverstone in Northamptonshire. He said that he had tested a Frazer Nash on the airfield the previous year and had mapped out a perfectly satisfactory 2 mile (3.2km) circuit along the perimeter roads and one of the runways. Why didn’t they go the next day?
After drinking to what was clearly an excellent idea, the owners of 11 Frazer Nashes and a Bugatti set off for Silverstone the following morning, where they were joined, so the story goes, by the pilot of a passing Tiger Moth who landed on the runway and tried his luck at the wheel of one of the cars. During practice one driver ran over an old garden fork, the impact causing the implement to spring up and stab him in the arm. Although there were reportedly no fewer than four doctors present, none bothered to attend the wound, which finally stopped bleeding of its own accord.
Precious few details are known about the race itself other than that Geoghegan was on the approach to Stowe when his Frazer Nash hit an errant sheep. It was the end of the road for both car and sheep, the latter receiving the scant consolation that the race would be known thereafter as the Mutton Grand Prix. The meeting finished in the time-honoured tradition – at the Saracen’s Head, Towcester.
Word got around. Within a year of Geoghegan’s pioneering race, Silverstone airfield was staging its first British Grand Prix. Then in 1949 it adopted the familiar perimeter-only layout which remained in use for many years and helped establish Silverstone as the home of British motor racing.