Ragstone

A soft, matured goat’s cheese with a densely fudgy texture and lactic, lemony flavours reminiscent of crème fraiche.

Minimum: 200g.

Spend over £29.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)

Delivery Information

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £29.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £29.50, standard delivery is £6.00.

Collection from our London shops is free - choose Shop Collection at checkout.

Choose your preferred delivery date at checkout. As we use third party couriers (typically DPD) we cannot guarantee the arrival day of your order but we will do our best to ensure that it arrives as close as possible to your chosen date. To be sure it arrives in time, we recommend choosing a date a couple of days ahead of when you would like to eat your cheese.

Download Crib Sheet

milk type
Goat

coagulant
Animal Rennet

milk treatment
Pasteurised

location
Dorstone, Herefordshire

milk source
Bought-in

season
All year

average age
3-4 Weeks

cheesemakers
Charlie Westhead

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A version of Ragstone is also made in Uganda, thanks to Conan, the son of Ragstone's creator Charlie Westhead. While working in a disabled children's foundation in Uganda, he helped to establish a goat farm to raise funds for the project and taught them how to make cheese in the style of Ragstone and Dorstone.

background

Ragstone, one of the first cheeses developed by Charlie Westhead for Neal's Yard Dairy, is inspired by the French goat's cheese Sainte Maure, although Ragstone is very much its own cheese. For a start, Charlie uses a white mould, rather than the blue-grey of Sainte Maure, and he has recently adapted the recipe to produce a smoother, creamier cheese, with less acidity and more complexity. After setting overnight, the curds are hand-ladled into log-shaped moulds – a slower, gentler process that contributes toward the cheese's smooth texture and rounded flavour. The cheeses are matured for two to four weeks, during which time they develop a bloomy-white rind and a bright, lactic taste. Though it is named for the Ragstone ridge near Sevenoaks where it was first created, this popular goat's cheese log has been produced in the Golden Valley in Herefordshire since the Westheads moved there in 1996. With windmills and solar panels generating most of their energy and drain water being purified through a wetland system of willows and reeds, Neal's Yard Creamery is a model of sustainability.

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our work with this cheese

Ragstone is made at Neal's Yard Creamery by Charlie Westhead – one of Neal's Yard Dairy's earliest employees. Neal's Yard Dairy started life as an actual dairy in Covent Garden, making yoghurts and crème fraiche and a few young cheeses. As we expanded into selling cheeses made elsewhere and it became apparent that the cheesemaking and cheese selling activities made more sense as separate businesses, the Creamery was established and moved to Kent. While the business has been independent from us since 1996, we continue to work closely together and Charlie remains a valued friend and supplier. The Ragstone cheeses that we sell at the Dairy are specially selected at a young age, before the bloomy-white rind has established. They arrive with us when seven days old and are carefully matured in the cold rooms of our Bermondsey arches for a further two or three weeks.

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Accompaniments

Damson Paste - 200g Slice
£8.20

Tracklements Fig Relish
£4.20

Serving Suggestions

Slice some leeks lengthways and griddle with a little oil. Finish with a scattering of Ragstone, pine nuts and a drizzle of balsamic oil for an elegant side dish.

Recipes

Goat's Cheese Custard and Asparagus

This goat's cheese custard recipe by James Sommerin is a delight on the plate and the palate.

Cheese and Herb Borek

Anne Gumushchian of Le Marché du Quartier shares her favourite recipe for stuffed boreks, recreated by Victoria Brown.

FAQs

How much cheese to buy?

As a general rule of thumb, we would recommend roughly between 100 and 150 grams per person for after dinner, and a bit more if cheese is the focus of the meal. If you are buying cheese to serve over a couple of days or as part of a buffet, it is advisable to buy a few larger pieces. This will both look better and keep better than many small bits. To help visualise weights, a good tip is to consider that a regular supermarket pat of butter weighs between 200 and 250 grams. If you are at all unsure please give us a call for some advice.

How should I store my cheese?

The best option is to keep your cheese wrapped in its paper within a box in the fridge. This will prevent the cheese from drying out and absorbing other flavours. Your cheese will arrive wrapped in waxed cheese paper, which achieves the best possible balance between maintaining humidity around the cheese and allowing it to breathe. We are happy to provide some free extra cheese paper, just search for "cheese paper" and add it to your basket. We don't recommend cling film or foil as it can cause the cheese to sweat which will negatively affect the flavour.