unique ewe's milk cheese...

Cumbria has a growing artisan cheese making industry, which produce a diverse range of cheeses; from traditional hard farm cheeses to exquisitely presented sumptuous goats cheeses.

One fairly recent addition to the Cumbrian cheese scene is Holker Farm Dairy, set up and run by Martin Gott and his partner Nicola. Martin and Nicola make raw milk cheese with the farm's own ewes milk. This is sublimely simple cheese making; twice a day the ewes are milked, the milk is then carried in stainless steel buckets from the milking parlour into the dairy where it is warmed up, starter and rennet added and it is then left alone to mature for about anything from one to three months. Martin and Nicola make their washed rind St James cheese as well as cows milk cheese to fill capacity off and on.

Martin explains why he and Nicola decided to farm and produce cheese in the way that they do: "Keeping the animals here is part of the ethos and the business. We didn't want to set up a dairy to produce cheese from milk from Holker's other farms, brand it and make good money, that wasn't the idea. Our intention was to produce something that's farmstead. In other words, what we're trying to do is to farm at a level manageable with two people, make a saleable product, find a market and get decent value for it."

At the moment, almost all of Holker Farm Dairy's St James is sold through Neal's Yard Dairy in London, who sell farm cheeses from the British Isles. But don't despair, Martin also takes the delicious cheese to Orton Farmers Market, and it is also stocked at the Holker Food Hall.

Content and photography supplied by www.artisan-food.com