The Appleby family have made Cheshire continuously on their farm since 1952. Theirs is the last raw milk, clothbound Cheshire made in England today.
Location
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Our work with this cheese
In 1982, Mr and Mrs Appleby, along with their son Edward and his wife Christine, refused to give in to pressure from supermarkets to begin waxing their cheeses. They sought out alternative markets and began selling cheese to us at Neal’s Yard Dairy. We appreciated that the texture and flavour of the clothbound cheese are more important than the ease of cutting on a production line, or the reduced weight loss that supermarkets gain from coating cheese in wax. Our relationship with the Applebys remains close to this day: we have been selecting batches of Cheshire from the family for over 30 years. Now the third generation, Paul and Sarah, have come into the business. Sarah recently began making hand churned whey butter, much like Lucy once did. Paul looks after the farm. They work closely with Paul’s parents and cheesemaker Garry Gray to ensure the continued production of exceptional Cheshire. We still visit them once a month on our selection trips to the North. We taste through all the batches of cheese made since the previous visit. We generally sell the cheeses at around four months old.
Read more
The Evolution of the Cheshire Recipe
Year of Cheshire at Neal's Yard Dairy
Cheshire's place within the history of cheesemaking in the UK
The Appleby's have been making Cheshire cheese at Hawkstone Abbey Farm, near Whitchurch in Shropshire, for three generations and are the last farm making a Cheese using their own raw milk. In February this year we visited cheesemaker Garry Gray and owners Paul and Sarah Appleby, in order to film the work they do. We hope you enjoy the film as much we enjoyed making it.