6 Iconic British Styles of Cheese At Neal’s Yard Dairy
Our British territorial cheese counter, from Cheshire to Cotherstone
The British cheese tradition is one of the finest in the world. For hundreds of years, family farms across England, Scotland, and Wales produced uniquely delicious wheels of cheese. Each region had its own style, and each dairy had its own version. Imagine: a particularly squidgy Wensleydale, streaked with blue; a fresh, curdy Caerphilly; an unctuous Double Gloucester.
By the mid-20th century, industrialisation and two World Wars had taken their toll. "When I started in 1979, there were really only a handful of farmers left,” our founder, Randolph Hodgson, told Saveur in 2007. “Everyone else had either given up or changed to making commercial products with pasteurised milk and wax coatings. The tradition was close to being lost."
Thanks to the hardworking and persistent British cheese community, the tradition is alive today. Here are six iconic styles of British cheese you can taste, here and now.
1. Cheshire
In the early days of Neal's Yard Dairy, the story goes, two Shropshire farmers came to visit. They set a wheel of cheese on the counter and said, we can’t sell this to supermarkets. Can we sell it to you? Those farmers were Lance and Rob Appleby, and that cheese was Appleby's Cheshire.
Cheshire, an acidic, crumbly cheese with a faint orange hue, was once among the most popular cheeses in the United Kingdom. "Cheshire is the cheese that provisioned Nelson's navy,” says our Technical Director, Bronwen Percival. “It’s what Samuel Pepys was eating.”
By the mid-20th century, however, there were vanishingly few raw milk, farmhouse Cheshires left. Appleby’s Cheshire was – and is – one of the only remaining examples. Juicy and bright, with a pleasantly crumbly texture, it has become a mainstay of our cheese counter.
2. Lancashire
Neal’s Yard Dairy has been collecting Lancashire from the Kirkhams' farm in Goosnargh for well over three decades. The cheese has a light yet complex flavour, thanks to a multi-day make that combines curd made from different milkings. It is well-known for its “buttery crumble” texture, in part because it is bound in cloth and sealed with butter.
When Randolph first tasted Mrs. Kirkham’s Lancashire, it was not clothbound and buttered; it was waxed. At the time, waxing the rind was considered “the modern way to finish a cheese,” our Director, David Lockwood, recalled in 2017. But it can create a soggy texture. When Randolph encouraged cheesemaker Ruth Kirkham to try a buttered, clothbound rind, the light, fluffy texture spoke for itself. ”Ruth’s willingness to take on the venture of making a natural buttered rind meant the farm could offer a cheese completely different to all the other Lancashire cheeses on the market,” David wrote.
This collaborative effort to bring out the best in raw milk, farmhouse Lancashire continues to this day. Graham Kirkham has led efforts to test raw milk for bacteria cheaply and regularly on-farm, potentially increasing safety and consistency. At Neal's Yard Dairy, we've facilitated and amplified these efforts.
And in 2024, we began to sell a new raw milk, farmhouse Lancashire: Lowfields. We've worked with cheesemaker Roger Cowgill from the beginning to establish his cheese – and share the next Lancashire with our customers.
3.Caerphilly
Duckett's Caerphilly is tangy, mushroomy, and like almost no other cheese – thanks to Chris Duckett's remarkable cheesemaking and Neal's Yard Dairy's early experiments in maturation.
The Duckett family had made Caerphilly since the 1920s, and Chris was the last of a long line of Somerset Caerphilly makers, his mother having passed her know-how on to him. He quickly began making an exceptional cheese, one of the few small-production Caerphilly cheeses left.
The profile of Caerphilly tends to be sour and fresh, with a flaky, curdy paste. When Neal's Yard Dairy began ordering Duckett's, we left it to mature in cardboard boxes in our Covent Garden shop. The humid, warm environment encouraged the now-familiar squidgy breakdown and mushroomy rind. “It was one of Neal’s Yard Dairy’s first opportunities to experiment with maturation,” says Bronwen.
In the late 1990s, Chris Duckett moved production to Westcombe Dairy. He also taught Todd Trethowan his process. Today, Todd and his brother Maugan produce Gorwydd Caerphilly at their eponymous dairy. He passed away in 2009, leaving behind not one, but two small-scale raw milk Caerphillys.
4. Red Leicester
You may not have tasted Caerphilly, but you have probably eaten plenty of Red Leicester, a salty, savoury, annatto-hued hard cheese. It is readily available in supermarkets; it finds its way into many a pub toastie. In its mass-produced, pasteurised form, that is. Farmhouse Red Leicester was essentially extinct before the Clarke family revived it in 2005.
“Our friend, a butcher’s son, remembered sitting on wheels of Red Leicester in the back of his father’s van [after collecting them from a local farmhouse dairy],” says cheesemaker David Clarke. “It was a wonderful Red Leicester, the cheese he remembered.” But that was a childhood memory. Only factory-produced Red Leicester, which had a reputation as “rubbery and tasteless,” was left.
The Clarke family set out to make the cheese their friend remembered. The work began not in the dairy, but on the farm. “We take care of the soil, which takes care of the plants, which feed the cows, who give the milk, which goes into the cheese,” David says.
The result is Sparkenhoe Red Leicester. “The flavours we’re looking for are nutty, citrus, and sweet,” David says. “We’re looking for a meaty texture, dry enough that it doesn’t stick to your palate.”
Sparkenhoe is very different from factory Red Leicester. “We regularly get people who say, ‘I don’t like Red Leicester, but I like that,’” David says. “And we get older people who say ‘that’s how I remember it.’”
5.Wensleydale
Farmhouse Red Leicester was revived by a single producer. Wensleydale, happily, has been taken up by several producers: a new wave of small dairies making complex cheeses with raw milk.
At the moment, there are three Wensleydales on our counter. The Hattan family make Stonebeck, a seasonal cheese with a lip-smacking grassy butteriness. At Whin Yeats, the Noblet family make a mild, mushroomy Wensleydale from a 1933 recipe. Curlew Dairy makes bright, lemony Yoredale year-round. “The cheese is a marrying of technique and fitting it around our lifestyle: what time to pick the kids up, et cetera,” said Sam Spence of Curlew Dairy when asked to define Wensleydale. “I think when you combine those two, you end up with a unique cheese that's specific to your dairy and your location.”
It is a far cry from the hundreds of Wensleydales that bloomed 150 years ago. It is a welcome development all the same. Ten years ago, there were no pre-war Wensleydales on our counter. Now, there are multiple to choose from.
6.Cotherstone
Today, we remember a small handful of British regional cheeses. But in the past, there were many, many more. One of them was Cotherstone. An 1883 Teesdale Mercury report reads “‘Cotherstone Cheese’ has obtained celebrity across the United Kingdom.”
The Cotherstone on our counter today is a milky, semi-hard cheese, not unlike a Wensleydale; it is made overnight, like a Stilton. Handed down from generation to generation of the Cross family since 1947, production ended when Joan Cross retired in 2023. Cotherstone might have joined the ranks of British cheeses that went extinct when their makers retired. But Gordon Cross, Joan’s son, is now balancing cheesemaking with a career in tech and a life abroad to keep the tradition going.
Customers are very glad to see it back.
And more?
The six styles on this list cover a breadth of regions and flavours. They are still just a small portion of what once was. “The lost diversity is staggering,” says Bronwen Percival, our Technical Director. “There are single representatives of an entire style of cheese that was once made by thousands of people.” There are also cheeses that are no longer made at all – at least, not in a cloth-bound, small-scale form. Will we ever taste another raw milk, farmhouse Swaledale or Banbury cheese?
In 1879, there would have been hundreds of British cheeses to choose from. In 1979, there were very few. Today, a small community of tenacious cheesemakers are producing British styles that were once lost. In 2079, will there be more? Will there be several dairies producing different versions of the same style? Will there be more British styles, revived and revisited? We hope so. It would be a delicious future.
You can find the styles on this list in our shops and online. Ask your cheesemonger about British territorial cheese.
