45 Years of Neal's Yard Dairy
London, 1979. The farm-to-table movement has not arrived. Regulators regard raw milk with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Good cheese is hard to find. In a dilapidated corner of Covent Garden, activist-entrepreneur Nicholas Saunders helps food science graduate Randolph Hodgson found Neal’s Yard Dairy.
Today, Neal’s Yard Dairy sells dozens of British and Irish cheeses to customers in London and around the world. There is growing interest in raw milk cheese, made by hand, in harmony with its environment.
It’s easy to forget just how much time and effort it took to get here. In the beginning, Randolph drove around the countryside, searching for the very best British cheese. He found it. He fostered it. He fought for it. We have continued to do so ever since.
As we celebrate 45 years of the Dairy, we are taking the time to remember the cheeses we’ve found along the way: from Beenleigh Blue, one of the first cheeses on our counter, to Stonebeck Wensleydale, one of the newest.
Thank you for reading – and for eating. Here’s to many more years of exceptional British and Irish cheese.
1980s: Beenleigh Blue
Robin Congdon began making Beenleigh Blue in the same year Randolph Hodgson founded Neal’s Yard Dairy: 1979.
At the time, there were many mass-produced British blue cheeses on the market; few, if any, produced on a small scale. Robin set out to make something different: a Roquefort-style cheese made with excellent milk, to the rhythm of daily life. “The recipe we use is based on 20-minute breaks because of how long it used to take him to come out of the dairy, have a cigarette, and go back in again,” said Ben Harris, who took Ticklemore Dairy over from Congdon in 2023.
Much has changed since 1979 – milk suppliers have come and gone, Robin Congdon has retired, and husband-and-wife duo Ben and Laura Harris oversee the dairy. The partnership between Ticklemore Dairy and Neal’s Yard Dairy remains. In 2016, we worked together to offer Brunswick Blue, a matured Beenleigh Blue with a natural rind.
There is another principle that was there from the start. Robin used to say “he took lovely milk and just steered it in the right direction.” And today? "Yeah, I’ll stick with that,” Ben said.
1990s: Lincolnshire Poacher
Simon Jones’ family has run their farm in the Lincolnshire Wolds for over a century. But this is not a story about a long line of farmhouse cheesemakers. "I’d grown up hearing about how, one day, we would make cheese,” Simon said.
The day finally came in 1992. Patrick Holden, of Hafod Cheddar, introduced Simon to Dougal Campbell, a fellow cheesemaker. “Dougal – bless him – drove all the way from West Wales and brought some rennet in an old tonic bottle and a sachet of starter culture. We made the first batch of Lincolnshire Poacher together.”
In 1996, Lincolnshire Poacher was named Supreme Champion at the British Cheese Awards. “Randolph was one of the three head judges who made the decision,” Simon said.
That was the beginning of a decades-long partnership. Three times a year, the Neal's Yard Dairy team visits Simon's farm, selects Lincolnshire Poacher, eats dinner, and spends the night. “For 30 years, that has been part of the fabric of what happens at the farm,” Simon said.
A lot has changed in those 30 years – mostly for the better. “There are so many more delicious farmhouse cheeses than there were,” Simon said, listing Baron Bigod as one of many examples. “It’s a wonderful journey. And it continues to be.”
2000s: Stichelton
Colston Bassett Dairy made its last wheel of raw milk Stilton in 1989. It was a great loss. Raw milk Stilton was profoundly complex and long-flavoured. Randolph tried to convince another cheesemaker to pick up where Colston Bassett had left off, with no luck – until he met Joe Schneider in the early 2000s. “It sounded like the Holy Grail of cheese making,” Joe said.
No one had made a raw milk traditional blue cheese in 15 years. To do it themselves, Joe and his team took up a kind of experimental archeology. They worked with the makers of Colston Bassett Stilton; later, they tracked down their decades-old starter.
The cheese they brought back is not Stilton. According to Protection Designation of Origin rules enshrined in 1996, Stilton can only be made with pasteurised milk. “We’re not allowed to call it Stilton, but maybe that’s not so important, because we’ve enjoyed having that discussion,” Joe said.
“If you eat a nice piece of cheese, you can forget that you're having a human experience. It’s simple, it’s flavoured, it brings you pleasure,” Joe said. “Go a little bit deeper and you can see that this cheese is representative of something. Of a place. Of a farming system. Of people.” Stichelton's name forces you to go deeper – into history, authenticity, and raw milk cheese.
2010s: Baron Bigod
In 2010, Neal’s Yard Dairy still sold Brie de Meaux. There was simply no British cheese that could match it. When Jonny Crickmore visited our Borough Market shop and saw that big, white wheel on the counter, he thought: “why is no one else making this cheese in the UK?”
What would it take for a British farmer to make a cheese that tasted just as good as – if not better than – than Brie de Meaux? They would have to acquire a herd of Montbéliarde cows from France. They would have to train with skilled fromagers. Then, they would have to spend years perfecting the recipe by trial and error.
That’s exactly what Jonny and his wife, Dulcie, did. Our technical director, Bronwen Percival, introduced them to two key figures: Ivan Larcher, who taught them the make, and Thierry Lerendu, who helped them improve it.
“All of those little secrets which I didn't understand to begin with, we gradually uncovered them,” Jonny said. “We've worked out, when the cheese was really good, why it was really good.”
Neal’s Yard Dairy no longer sells Brie de Meaux. The only three-kilo, bloomed rind cheese on our counters is Baron Bigod.
2020s: Stonebeck Wensleydale
Stonebeck Wensleydale's make, flavour, and texture would be familiar to a farmhouse cheesemaker 100 years ago – though Sally and Andrew Hattan only sold us their first wheel in 2020.
The story of how the Hattans came to make Stonebeck would also be familiar to farmers across time and space. Despite a 450-strong flock of sheep, a herd of cows, and “Andrew working really, really hard,” Sally said, their farm in the Yorkshire Dales was not financially sustainable. They decided to try making cheese.
What sets the Hattans apart is how they set about making that cheese. They acquired a herd of endangered Northern Dairy Shorthorn cows. They studied century-old cheesemaking texts. They sought advice from Andy Swinscoe of The Courtyard Dairy, who introduced them to our technical director, Bronwen Percival. In sum, they joined the movement to revive traditional, raw milk Wensleydale.
“Our recipe very much reflects the need to integrate with a farming day,” Sally said. While the curd drains slowly in hanging muslin bags, the Hattans can do other jobs around the farm. Production runs from spring to autumn, when their cows can graze from verdant, biodiverse meadows.
It is a very new cheese in a very old tradition.