Hawes, Cheese Making: BU04828a



Cheese and Butter Making Equipment: DCM0026

The Yorkshire Dales produces several famous varieties of cheese - for instance Wensleydale, Swaledale, Cotherstone and Coverdale. French monks, who moved into the Dales to monasteries such as Jervaulx after the Norman Conquest, introduced cheese making to the area. After the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, cheese-making skills were practiced in the farmhouse kitchens, and later in the nineteenth century, in small factories or creameries.

Cheese making is a complicated process that is as much an art as a science. It involves producing a curd from milk, which is then moulded into the desired shape and left to mature.

Traditionally, cheese was made with ewe’s milk, but today it is more often made from cow’s milk. Some cheese is also made with milk from sheep, goats and even water buffalo!

Cheese Kettle: DCM0025