Last Wednesday, 22nd March, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales called in to sample the cheeses at The Courtyard Dairy. Andy and Kathy Swinscoe were thrilled that His Royal Highness took time this week to visit their shop. As Patron of the Specialist Cheesemaker Association, and the Rare Breed Survival Trust, The Prince is clearly a big fan of small farmhouse cheese-makers and traditional farming – two things which Andy and Kathy also have very close to their hearts, demonstrated by The Courtyard Dairy consistently championing unpasteurised farm-made cheese. Arriving at The Courtyard Dairy, The Prince chatted to Andy and Kathy and their staff before sampling several cheeses.  He was noticeably impressed with the flavour and texture, exclaiming about one cheese, “This is seriously good” and commenting “It’s all so irresistible” as the time came to leave. “It was an absolutely fantastic day,” said Kathy, co-owner of The Courtyard Dairy, “The Prince was really charming and passionately believed in what we were doing, which was great to hear.”

Dads are hard to buy for, and with Father’s Day approaching (Sunday 18th June) choosing just how to please them best is difficult.  But there is one thing that most dads love: a good plate of strong, smelly cheese. Once upon time a chunk of Stilton and a good strong Cheddar would have been the best you could find.  But in the last three years Britain’s artisan cheese industry has been flourishing, with new farmhouse cheese producers starting up all the time – so where do you start looking for that extra-special cheese to please? Thankfully, there’s no need to spend hours searching – the award-winning Courtyard Dairy has come up with a perfect solution: buy your dad a mystery cheese club subscription.  He’ll receive the first batch of three cheeses in time for Father’s Day and thereafter it’s up to you to choose how many extra months you’d like to treat him to (from 3 months, to once a quarter or even every other month…).  If there are cheeses your dad doesn’t like so much (for example goats’ cheeses) that can be accommodated too. Each monthly mystery cheese box includes a diverse selection of cheeses (hard, soft, blue, goats…),…

This Wednesday, 22nd March, Andy and Kathy Swinscoe, owners of The Courtyard Dairy will be thrilled to welcome his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to their shop.  The Prince will be visiting The Courtyard during his Royal Visit to the area. The Prince is the patron of the Specialist Cheesemakers Association, and has long supported traditional farming techniques and unpasteurised cheese, so Andy and Kathy are thrilled that he will be visiting their shop and cheese-maturing facility. “The Prince of Wales has long been a champion of the small-scale artisans that make farmstead cheese,” said Andy, “I am absolutely delighted that he is taking the time to come and see what we do.  I can’t wait to let him taste the amazing variety of traditional cheeses we offer.”

Tell us briefly about your business and your career. We have been milking cows here (starting with just 3!) since 1952, on the tenancy farm we obtained. The farm has now seen four generations working there, with my current eldest Jono now running the farm. Currently we have about 170 Holstein Friesians. As well as that, we grow vegetables – with about 100 acres of organic summer veg, and in the autumn we grow about 30 acres of Halloween pumpkin. Fifteen years ago we started to make a bit of cheese, in a very small way, and it has evolved into about 1.5 tons a week. So what made you start making cheese 15 years ago? We made the decision, in 1999, as a means of adding value to our cows’ milk. The writing had been on the wall for some time: supermarkets were becoming more and more powerful, we were finding them virtually impossible to work with, and so we needed to prevent us becoming too reliant on them. Hence cheese making … and soon old Winchester cheese would follow. Why the name Winchester? When we came to name the cheese we originally chose ‘Lyburn’, that being the name…

Some pictures and comments from customers who have previously celebrated with Cheese Wedding Cakes from The Courtyard Dairy.

(part 3)

An interview with Joe Schneider; creator and cheese-maker of the fabulous Stichelton cheese! Find out what Joe loves on the food scene, his ethos for his business, how he got started and his recommendations on the best places to eat and shop for food! Brief synopsis of your business & career? I started as an American living in Holland making Greek cheese for a Turk in 1995, fell in love with cheesemaking, and thought at the time Britain was doing the best job of preserving and showcasing its traditional cheese making heritage. So I moved to Sussex in 1998 where I worked on a small biodynamic farm. In 2001 I moved to Daylesford, designed and built Daylesford Creamery and developed a few cheeses for Sir Anthony and Lady Bamford. I stayed there 5 years until I was approached by Randolph Hodgson of Neal’s Yard Dairy to start a project to, if allowed, bring back Raw Milk Stilton into production. We weren’t allowed. Tell me more about the farm that you work on? Stichelton is made on a farm on Welbeck Estate in Nottinghamshire, and they are also our partners. They milk 150 Friesian / Holsteins and have milked cows here…

When Andrew and Sally Hattan took over the tenancy of run-down upland farm Low Riggs Middlesmoor, Nidderdale, in 2007, their goal was to create a farm that cared for the land and was financially sustainable in the long run.  Part of this was choosing the right breed of cow to keep. The first task was to rebuild the farm landscape and infrastructure with help from a Natural England stewardship grant. 2000 metres of dry-stone walls needed much repair, several hectares of ghyll woodland needed restoring and the upland hay-meadows needed re-planting – re-populating as they would have been with traditional and diverse breeds of grass, herbs and clover. The final part of the stewardship grant, and providing a significant contribution to the restoration this upland farm, is a requirement to keep a stock of native-breed cattle. But first they had to decide which cattle to choose. Andrew and Sally wanted the farm to be financially sustainable long-term so it had to be a breed that made business sense. Being a rural upland farm, high in the Yorkshire Dales, Low Riggs has poor access (it is a long distance from ‘civilization’ and main roads), tough terrain, long winters, a short growing…

The Courtyard Dairy, has re-enacted an age-old tradition of passing a newborn baby through a wheel of cheese. Andy and his wife Kathy (owner’s of Settle’s award-winning cheesemonger) found out about the interesting tradition whilst they were researching ancient cheese recipes. Listed as a ‘cheese curiosity’ the antique book they were perusing showed that in the 1800s and earlier it was not unusual for a husband to supply a whole cheese at the time of his wife’s delivery, and for the cheese to have its centre removed in order to allow the newly-born baby to be ‘passed through’ a ‘ring of cheese’ when Christened. Called ‘groaning cheese’ because of the noise a woman emits when giving birth, chunks of the groaning cheese were cut from the middle when the baby was born, and given to everyone present. This left a ‘cheese ring’ through which the newborn could be passed when Christened, ensuring good luck for the rest of his or her life. Andy and Kathy, who’ve worked in the cheese industry for many years in the UK and France, coincidentally were lucky enough to become the parents of baby Walter on 22nd March this year. This was that was too…