For us it’s all about the heritage, provenance and legacy.
The heritage of cheese is long and fascinating, sometimes based on heresay and sometimes on fact. It’s the same for the history of Cheshire, it has a glorious past that is illustrious and was no doubt delicious.
(From the Romans, the Armarda, the wars and to the Cheshire is a cheese that was incredibly popular) suggest you read from a selection of books about the history of cheese…
The ethos behind the way we farm and make our produce today is very much influenced by Paul’s grandparents Lance and Lucy Appleby. Lucy came from a line of Cheshire cheesemaking matriarchs, cheesemaking being a female role, and once her and Lance had married and settled here at Hawkstone Abbey Farm in 1952 they both founded Appleby’s in the stables next to the farmhouse kitchen.
There it has stayed as probably one of the last ‘farmhouse’ cheese dairy’s left. This heritage is such an intrinsic part of what we do, from the way we farm to the way we think about maturation. Here in our unique traditional dairy we make ‘edible heritage’ in a way that still learns from Lucy’s incredible cheese make notes and has an exciting future influenced by those same traditions and values.
Master cheesemaker Gary worked with Lucy and now shares his knowledge with our brilliant dairy team Anna and Neil (who makes the most amazing whey butter, more of which later...) and John in the maturation rooms.
“The future of British Territorial cheeses like Appleby’s is exciting”
The dairy and farm are part of the rhythm of family life here at Hawkstone Abbey Farm. Our desire to have a more harmonious relationship with the biodynamics of the land has prompted a recent change.
The farm has recently undergone a conversion towards a more regenerative and sustainable way of farming. Each cloth bound Cheshire encapsulates a moment in time – the soil, the traditional grass pastures, the gentle cows, the weather, the season.
Their fresh, raw milk is the master ingredient, to which we add traditional cultures, rennet, salt from the Cheshire Plains and the extract of the annatto seed, which gives our coloured Cheshire it’s warm sunrise colour. These time capsules are matured in old barns with napoleonic timbers. The provenance and flora of our natural surroundings give our Appleby’s cheeses a flavour that is totally unique.
The future of British Territorial cheeses like Appleby’s is exciting, small traditional farmhouse dairies making delicious, thought-provoking cheeses from a herd of grazing animals that give people pleasure as they eat would be a marvellous legacy for all the famers and cheesemakers over the centuries.
