Cheese and Dairy Products in the Yorkshire Dales
The Yorkshire Dales have a growing reputation for excellent cheese and dairy products.
Cheese
The Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes, is a popular destination and a good place to go to watch and learn more about the art of cheese-making. There is plenty to keep children occupied too, including 'driving' a mini milk tanker and clips of Wallace & Gromit films, which featured Wensleydale cheese. Wensleydale Creamery has won more than 700 awards and accolades and, after a seven-year struggle, managed to achieve European Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in December 2013. This is seen as a guarantee of quality and authenticity, and is recognised worldwide. The Creamery’s new demonstration room hosts cheese and butter making demonstrations, as well as cheese grading, pairings & tasting masterclasses and live cookery demonstrations. If you go to Wensleydale Creamery, don't forget to explore the rest of Hawes, an attractive Dales market town which hosts a variety of good independent shops and the Dales Countryside Museum. Ribblesdale Cheese is a smaller award-winning artisan cheese maker, also based in Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales. They are particularly known for their excellent goat and ewe’s milk cheeses, all produced in small handmade batches. Look out for their goat ash logs, goat curd cheese, mature goat’s cheese, and Yorkshire Manchego. Swaledale Cheese Company can trace its artisan cheesemaking craft all the way back to the 11th century. By the 20th century cheese making declined in Swaledale, leaving only one farm producing cheese in 1980. When the Longstaff farm stopped producing cheese, Mrs. Marjorie Longstaff passed on the original Swaledale cheese process to the founders of Swaledale Cheese Company. The process has remained unchanged since the production of cheese began in 1987.
An excellent place to buy farmhouse cheese and learn more about cheese-making is the Courtyard Dairy near Settle. This cheese-lovers’ mecca is run by Andy Swinscoe who is passionate about championing small independent cheese-makers. His expertise and knowledge shine out – if you can’t get to the shop, try one of his online cheese-tasting sessions.
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Stonebeck Wensleydale is a newer cheese, made using raw milk from a herd of just fifteen Northern Dairy Shorthorn cows, a rare breed native to the Yorkshire Dales. The cheese is made by hand and is pressed and bound in calico before maturing. Stonebeck is a re-imagined version of Wensleydale cheese, based on early recipes and interviews with a 101-year-old local cheese maker to reimagine the farmhouse Wensleydale.
The Home Farmer is a family enterprise involving brothers Ben and Adam Spence, their parents David and Susan, and Ben's wife Sam. Growing lush green grass and rearing healthy happy cows is part of their heritage. Now they're going back to basics and selling milk and cheese direct from their farm.
Rather than drive a Benny-Hill style milk cart, they've converted a horse trailer into a mobile shop that is parked in different Wensleydale villages so anyone in Aysgarth, West Burton, Hawes and Askrigg can buy farm fresh milk and delicious cheese. Better still, the milk is only gently pasteurised so has a layer of cream on just like it used to do! The taste is very different from supermarket milk. The Spence family have 100 cows, all of which they know by name. In the summertime you can see the 'girls' grazing and when the weather gets cold they're taken inside to a spacious cattle shed where they can enjoy a good massage with scratching brushes. Their Old Roan cheese is made in small batches by hand on the farm. Made using raw milk to a slow traditional recipe, resulting in a cheese that is smooth and creamy in texture; meaning that it also melts nicely so you can cook with it too. The milk travels a mere 5 metres from the milking parlour to the processing room next door! The cheese is clothbound and aged in their maturing room for 3-4 months. |
Ice Cream
Brymor is the home of real Yorkshire ice cream. Using local milk and cream from Dales cows, they create award-winning, homemade Yorkshire icecream on their farm at High Jervalux near Masham. Come and visit their ice cream parlour, where you’ll find fun for all the family including play areas, a gift shop and even a dedicated doggy exercise field!
Brymor is a Yorkshire brand through and through, with local people using their years of expertise to manufacture their beloved ice cream. Make sure you keep an eye out for Brymor drivers taking their ice cream to shops, cafes and restaurants across the North East and Yorkshire and their ice cream vans popping up in the local towns. Archers pride themselves in creating award-winning, luxury, artisan ice cream from their own milk and other local ingredients such as fudge and honey. They travel to Bologna annually to keep up with the latest trends in Italian ice cream production, and combine these traditional techniques with British seasonal ingredients to create both ice cream and ice cream cakes. Their ice cream cakes are perfect for those special occasions.
The reason why their ice cream tastes so good is down to their beautiful free range cows. Since losing their original herd in 2001, Archers have recently reintegrated black and white cows back into their herd, whilst keeping a large proportion of pedigree Jerseys, which is why their ice-cream tastes so good. If the idyllic vision of the Famous Five stopping, propping their bikes against the wall and enjoying ice cream appeals to you, pop over to Lofthouse in Nidderdale where you'll find Meadow Dale Ice Cream. The Coates family have produced fresh milk from their Friesian herd for a half century. Their truly delicious ice cream is produced on the farm, often using ingredients they've picked themselves.
Opening times are a little uncertain - if the signs are out in the village, some-one is likely to be at home. If the tin shed doors are closed, you're encouraged to knock on the house door, Famous Five style! |
At Billy Bobs, go old school with ice cream staples like Vanilla and Mint Choc Chip or pick from high-falutin’ flavours like Key Lime Pie, Rainbow Sherbet or Cotton Candy; there’s nearabout 30 or so on offer. Pile ’em high on a cone, or push the boat out with a decadent sundae, they’ve all manner of homemade sauces and sprinkles that your taste buds’ll thank you for! If you’re after the soft stuff, they’ve created their very own dairy whippy. It’s also the secret ingredient that’s making their super thick hand-spun shakes the stuff of folklore! Plus, there’s a lip-smacking choice of ice cream sorbets, sherbets and popsicles to boot. They’ve been using local and seasonal ingredients since before farm-to-table came to fashion, and almost everything on the menu is made right there from scratch. Birchfield farm is a picturesque working farm nestled in the valley of Nidderdale, North Yorkshire, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is home to their herd of Jersey cows whose rich milk and cream is used to make their delicious home-made Ice cream.
Birchfeild farm is very well known for their Maize Maze. Their corn maize is ready and waiting for you to try and weave your way through to find 10 hidden items along the way. If you manage to find all 10 then you’ve completed the maze! Wensleydale Icecream supplies hotels, restaurants, shops and other outlets with their own hand made Dairy Ice Cream, at Manor Farm, Thornton Rust in the very heart of rural Wensleydale. The Harrison family are a family of food lovers to whom quality is key. They are well and truly rooted in the Yorkshire Dales and the family have been farming here for several hundred years. Their multi award winning jersey herd, Hillside Jerseys, produce the milk for this delicious ice cream, for which Adrian has achieved the great accolade of being twice voted Yorkshire Herdsman of the Year. |
Cheese-Making
Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes
Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby founded the Dales Countryside Museum in 1979. The original museum was housed in the former goods warehouse of Hawes station. Hartley and Ingilby aimed to capture life in the Yorkshire Dales before it disappeared. Learn about the history of farming in the Dales. See the back cans that farmers would use to carry milk from the field to the farmhouse, discover the importance of sheep farming and the significance of hay meadows.
Their display represents an early 19th century traditional kitchen found in the Dales. Discover the kitchen equipment of the day and find out about oatcake making. Discover how milk was used to boost income on the farm through cheese and butter making.
Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby founded the Dales Countryside Museum in 1979. The original museum was housed in the former goods warehouse of Hawes station. Hartley and Ingilby aimed to capture life in the Yorkshire Dales before it disappeared. Learn about the history of farming in the Dales. See the back cans that farmers would use to carry milk from the field to the farmhouse, discover the importance of sheep farming and the significance of hay meadows.
Their display represents an early 19th century traditional kitchen found in the Dales. Discover the kitchen equipment of the day and find out about oatcake making. Discover how milk was used to boost income on the farm through cheese and butter making.
Laceys cheese making courses are a truly unique day out in the dales. Lacey’s Cheese host fun, rewarding and informative days making cheese in the Yorkshire dales. Find out more
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At Courtyard Dairy, spend a day learning how to make cheese in their purpose-built cheese dairy. Find out more
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Image by Laceys
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Image by Courtyard Dairy
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