Lanark Blue

In the early 1980s Humphrey Errington took on a small holding just south of Biggar, not far from Edinburgh, Scotland.  Wanting to recreate a cheese traditional to the area, he discovered that sheep were more common than cattle on this rugged landscape, so decided to use sheep’s milk to make cheese following a recipe written in the 1820s by Sir Walter Scott.  Travelling to France he imported the finest dairy sheep to be found, the Lacaune breed (the same used to produce Roquefort), and set about creating a unpressed blue cheese similar to those made throughout the North of England in the middle ages.

The cheese, Lanark Blue, was soon established, and it quickly became a well-known classic throughout Scotland.  Based loosely on a Roquefort recipe, it has a powerful flavour that comes from the richness of the milk from the sheep milk feeding on the unforgiving mountainside.  Humphrey soon became known as pioneer in the revival of the Scottish cheese industry and helped unpasteurised cheese to continue to be made in Scotland, though not without a few legal battles (in which he almost lost his farm – read more on that here).

In recent years, Humphrey has taken a back seat as his daughter, Selina, has taken over the reins of the cheese making.  Her husband Andrew runs the farm and milks their 450-strong flock of sheep.

This product will have two weeks’ shelf life from the date of delivery.  Conveniently, at checkout you can choose a delivery date even well in the future if you would like your cheese delivering for a specific event.