Cheese role in Britain’s journey to maturity celebrated

Now the contribution the creamery at Hawes has made to the country is to feature in a national television programme charting how Britain has changed during the past 100 years.

Timed to coincide with the Census, the forthcoming BBC programme Making Britain Count will reveal how Britain’s culture, industries and economy have evolved since the Census was first introduced.

Each episode is set to focus on two decades from 1901 to the present day, and will cover themes such as property, employment, social conditions, education, cost of living, leisure, national identity, marriage, and family dynamics.

Alongside the major themes, the programme will also include smaller films to give viewers a better understanding of how their ancestors lived.

One of these will be a potted history of cheese throughout the century including cheese rationing during the war and how packaging and products have developed.

To help, the Wensleydale Creamery has provided photographs and film footage of milk being collected from farms across the Dales and of its cheese-making processes from yesteryear to the present day.

Wensleydale Creamery managing director David Hartley said: “We are proud of the provenance and heritage of Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese, which dates back to 1150. Therefore, it is fitting that we should be featured as part of a programme looking at the history of cheese.

“While our cheese is still hand crafted to time-honoured recipes, The Wensleydale Creamery has forged a reputation for modern-day innovation and diversification.”

The last century has proved to be one of the more colourful in the long history of Wensleydale cheese.

After production of the cheese began on a wider scale around 1900 the cheese began to reach larger markets.

By the 1930s, however, the Great Depression began to make its impression felt, making trading conditions difficult and leaving the creamery with significant debts to farmers .

Facing closure, the dairy, spearheaded by Kit Calvert, managed to rally support from the local farming community, raising enough capital to rescue the business.

Mr Calvert would run the creamery until 1966 when it was sold on to the then Milk Marketing Board before being sold again to Dairy Crest in 1979.

Arguably the creamery’s darkest hour came in May 1992 when it was closed with the loss of 59 jobs.

It would be a further six months before four of its ex-managers, together with a local businessman, completed a management buy-out and recommenced cheese making on the site.

Over the following years increasing demand for Wensleydale and its growing range of speciality cheeses, led to the acquisition of another creamery at Kirkby Malzeard, near Ripon.

The Hawes creamery is now home to more than 200 members of staff and has received fame and acclaim from across the world, as well as winning several awards.

Mr Hartley said the success of the business had been reliant on innovations within the company.

“This includes new packaging and cheese flavours and blends, innovative ways of introducing products to customers, such as the recent Wallace and Gromit cook book which is free with special 200g packs of Real Yorkshire Wensleydale, and a move into the tourist market with the development of a Visitor Centre.”

The Wensleydale Creamery is also in the final stages of its bid to achieve protected food status with a long-awaited decision from Brussels on its application expected by the summer.

If it secures special Protected Geographical Indication classification for its Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese then cheese producers outside the area could not make a product with the Real Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese name, protecting the provenance of the name.

Making Britain Count featuring The Wensleydale Creamery will be broadcast on Wednesday March 30 at 9.15am on BBC One. It will be accompanied by a new drama series, 32 Brinkburn Street, which follows two generations of the same family between 1931 and 2011.