Wednesday 22 June 2016

Melton Mowbray and the Vale of Belvoir, Stilton Cheese and Pork Pies: The Journey

Searching for Stilton Cheese and Pork Pies in the Places they are Made

Leicestershire

Stilton cheese has six licensed producers, one in Melton Mowbray and four more in the Vale of Belvoir immediately to the north. We thought we might pay them a visit, so we drove the 60 miles to Melton Mowbray.

Melton Mowbray

With the rain just holding off we walked past Anne of Cleves’ house towards the market square. A much restored medieval building it once housed the priests of the town’s chantry chapels. After the dissolution of the monasteries Henry VIII gave the house to Thomas Cromwell who lived there in 1540 but fell from grace after recommending Anne of Cleves to be Henry’s 4th wife and was executed in 1541. Ironically, the house passed to Anne of Cleves as part of her divorce settlement but although it bears her name she probably never even visited. It is now a pub.

Anne of Cleves' House, Melton Mowbray

The Butter Cross

Tuesdays and Saturdays are market days, so on Wednesday only a couple of forlorn looking stalls sat alongside the restored Butter Cross. Once there were four market crosses, today they would have outnumbered the stalls. We retreated to a coffee house and watched the rain splattering onto the flagstones.

Butter Cross, Melton Mowbray Market

Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe

Conveniently the shower stopped as we finished our coffee so we made our way up the High Street to ‘Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe’ (sic and yugh!) where we bought a Melton Mowbray pork pie. Dickinson Morris have been artisan pie-makers since 1851 but are no longer a family business and in 1992 were acquired by Samway Brothers, whose food empire stretches from Leicester to Cornwall (Ginsters Pasties). It is well laid out, but an artisan shop should have enthusiastic and knowledgeable employees and the staff gave the impression they would just as happily be selling baked beans or footwear.

Dickinson & Morris, Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe, Melton Mowbray

The Carnegie Museum

Back past the market square….

Market Square, Melton Mowbray

We continued towards the Tuxford and Tebbutt creamery. The Carnegie Museum is next door….

Carnegie Museum, Melton Mowbray

…and as it is free we dropped in. There is a display of foxhunting which in its modern (and now illegal) form was developed locally. The rest of the small space was aimed at school groups, which visit regularly. It feels strange to see items from our own childhood in museums (are we that old⁈) but it was well presented and I did like the chemist’s shop.

Chemist's shop, Carnegie Museum, Melton Mowbray

Tuxford and Tebbutt, Stilton Producers

Tuxford and Tebbutt, established 1780, also give the impression they are a family company but are wholly owned by Arla – the dairy farmers co-operative. Next to this quaint building is the forbidding modern creamery and there did not seem to be any factory shop. Morrison’s was across the road so we decided to peruse their Stilton. It was ‘own label’ and gave no clue to the manufacturer, though I know Tuxford and Tebbutt supply a lot of own label Stilton. Down the road a butcher was advertising Tuxford and Tebbutt Stilton so we bought some there.

Tuxford and Tebbutt, Melton Mowbray

In 1923 the winemakers of Châteauneuf du Pape, fed up with others cashing in on their reputation, sought legal protection for their name. Ten years later, after carefully defining the area and method of production, they succeeded and the appellation contrôlée system was born. The idea spread throughout the wine world, and then to other drinks and foods like olive oil, honey and ham.

In England, where food is considered a commodity rather than a cultural asset, the idea hardly caught on, though Stilton cheesemakers bucked the trend by forming an association to protect the origin and quality of their product in 1933. In 1966 it became the only British cheese to be protected by a trademark and 1996 they applied for and received Protected Designation of Origin status from the EU, so Stilton now stands alongside such delights as Parma Ham, Camembert and the Almonds of the Douro. In 2009 Melton Mowbray Pork Pies joined the EU’s elite band of protected geographical designations.[Update: Now that we have blundered out of the EU I am not sure what the situation is]

With two such products Melton Mowbray might appear justified in styling itself ‘Rural Capital of Food’, but with one pie shop and no visible effort put into promoting Stilton, it feels an overblown claim. It is worth taking another look at the picture of the market square, zooming in on the van in the centre. ‘Classic Cuisine - Cheeseburgers, Fries.’ I say no more.

Classic Cuisine, Melton Mowbray

Colston Bassett

Nottinghamshire

We headed north through lush countryside towards Cropwell Bishop, home of the northernmost of the five Stilton dairies. Melton Mowbray may have looked down at heel but the rural villages were full of prosperous well-kept homes and flowery lanes.

We paused for lunch in Colston Bassett, which also has a dairy, but one we would leave until a little later. The Martins Arms was a delight…

Martins Arms, Colston Bassett

… and the weather had perked up enough for us to have lunch in the carefully tended garden. The staff were attentive and friendly, the Black Sheep well kept and the Colston Bassett Stilton sandwich substantial enough to share. But, and it seemed an important ‘but’, the chutney in the sandwich overwhelmed the cheese

Martin Arms, Colston Bassett

Only when I paid the bill and read that the Martins Arms had been voted Nottinghamshire’s Best Dining Pub did I realise we had crossed the border from Leicestershire.

PDO rules allow Stilton to be made in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire from locally sourced cow’s milk. The method of production is defined and the quality protected by a taste test. Perhaps uniquely the village which gave the PDO its name is not included within the designated area. Stilton, in Cambridgeshire, is another 50mins drive east. It was the coach stop on the road north where cheese was marketed, not where it was produced, though this has been disputed.[Update: I suspect the rules are, for the moment at least, unchanged, though no longer backed by the EU]

Cropwell Bishop, Stilton Producer

Cropwell Bishop, also in Nottinghamshire, is a large village on the northern edge of the Vale of Belvoir. The Skailes family founded Somerset Creameries in 1941. They originally owned creameries in Somerset and Melton Mowbray but bought Cropwell Bishop in 1973 when they closed the West Country operation. Major investments were made here in the 1980s and the Melton Mowbray dairy was closed. The ‘Somerset Creameries’ name lingered until 2005 when the company, still run by the Skailes family, became Cropwell Bishop Creamery.

Cropwell Bishop Creamery

There is no access to the creamery, but they do have a proper shop, which offers a proper tasting. They let us loose on their fine classic Stilton, Shropshire Blue, harder, yellower and less interesting than Stilton, a rather ho-hum mature cheddar and the excellent Beauvale, a soft blue cheese reminiscent of Dolcelatte.

Lynne attacks classic Stilton, Cropwell Bishop Creamery

The shop stocks their full range including white Stilton (to my mind, Stilton with something missing) and Stilton with fruit inclusions, cranberries, apricots etc, for those who fail to realise that what white Stilton is actually missing is the blue veins.

Cropwell Bishop shop

Colston Bassett, Stilton Producer

We drove back to Colston Bassett….

Colston Bassett, definitely in Nottinghamshire

…..where the creamery shop only offered one cheese, but at least it was the right one. The company was started in 1913 when the local doctor persuaded farmers and others to invest in starting a creamery. The enterprise has thriven.

Colston Bassett Creamery and shop

The wide Vale of Belvoir is top quality agricultural country, though we saw no cattle despite cheese being its most famous product.

The Vale of Belvoir (pronounced Beaver - don't ask me why)

Long Clawson, Stilton Producer

Leicestershire

Long Clawson (back in Leicestershire) lives up to its name, being an extraordinarily long thin village. The dairy, right at one end, is not set up for visitors, but there is a fridge by reception from which sales are made.

Clawson Creamery reception (there's a fridge for sales in there)

Another home-grown enterprise, it was founded in 1911 by local farmers and now employs 200 people who make almost 7,000 tonnes of cheese yearly from the milk of 40 farms.

Clawson Creamery, Long Clawson

Saxelby, Alleged Stilton Producer

Websters, in the hamlet of Saxelby, is the fifth local producer. It is a family concern run by two sisters who, according to their website, welcome visitors. Unfortunately we could not find it, though we drove up, then down the main street. Looking at Google street view I can see where it should be, but if they had a sign, I could not see it.[Update: in 2016 I wondered if they had gone out of business. But not so - or at least not then. In December 2020 the Melton Times reported that the pandemic had produced a 16% drop in Stilton sales and as a result Websters had closed. There is no indication as to whether it will ever reopen.]

And so, with four pieces of Stilton and a Melton Mowbray pork pie we set off home. Apparently neither Melton Mowbray nor the Stilton industry are very interested in marketing themselves to visitors (though Cropwell Bishop is trying), so although it was a good day out, it was not a great one. Quality food and tourism have much to offer each other, if this was France there would undoubtedly be ‘route de fromage’, so why not here?

Hartington, Stilton Producer

Derbyshire

For completeness I will also mention the sixth Blue Stilton producer based in the Derbyshire Village of Hartington – rather a long way from the other five. Once owned and then closed by Clawson, the creamery reopened in 2012 and has been making Stilton since 2014. I should also add there are other producers of White Stilton, but I have made my opinion on that clear already.

My friends and walking companions Brian and Francis in the Peak District village of Hartington (Feb 2012)

So that is the tourist bit, now on to the tasting - it is the next post.

Saturday 30 April 2016

Bluebells in Dockey Wood and the Pitstone Windmill

A Spectacular Display of Bluebells and a Venerable Windmill

30/04/2016

Dockey Wood

Buckinghamshire

We headed south to Buckinghamshire to help celebrate our daughter’s birthday and it was her idea to visit Dockey Wood.

Late April/early May is bluebell season, and there are colonies in most woodlands, but in Dockey Wood they are particularly spectacular.

Bluebells, Dockey Wood

The wood is part of the National Trust’s Ashridge Estate which straddles the Hertfordshire/Buckinghamshire border on the dip slope of the Ivinghoe Hills, covering 20km² of woodland, common land and chalk downs.

Normally the public has free access to the whole estate and controversy has surrounded the NT’s decision to make a small (£3) charge for entry to Dockey Wood for this and next weekend, after which the bluebells will be gone. I can appreciate their reasoning; the woods are understandably popular at this time of year and the numbers need managing.

Bluebells, Dockey Wood

The charge applies form 10am to 4pm. We turned up at 4.30 as the car park was emptying and paid nothing – and the woods were far less crowded.

Bluebells, Dockey Wood

This blog is about places rather than people and welcomes visitors from all over the world, most of whom do not know me personally. Perhaps, then, it is an inappropriate place for a family photograph, but I like this one and so may the substantial minority of visitors who are 'family & friends'.

Family photo, Dockey Wood

01/05/2016

The Pitstone Windmill

The conjoined villages of Ivinghoe and Pitstone lie to the north of the hills and Pitstone Windmill sits in a field nearby.

You are now entering Pitstone

We strolled there in watery Spring sunshine that was pleasantly warm - at least in sheltered spots. Windmills are, unsurprisingly, built where there is wind and on the open ground we felt a steady breeze with a keen cutting edge.

Pitstone Windmill and Ivinghoe Beacon

Built in 1627, though parts of it might be older (and the restored parts younger!) the mill was originally also owned by the Ashridge Estate. Seriously damaged in a storm in 1902, the ruin was sold to a local farmer in 1922 who donated it to the National Trust in 1937. Renovation began in 1963 and was carried out by a group of volunteers.

Pitstone Windmill

It is a post mill, the upper wooden section designed to rotate on a central post to catch the best wind. Although the milling machinery inside is kept in working order, the wooden section can no longer turn.

Pitstone Windmill and the wheel that once helped it turn

Ivinghoe is a short distance away across the fields, the 13th century church of St Mary being the most obvious landmark.

Ivinghoe

Update 14/05/2016

Windmill Day 2016

The 14th of May was Windmill Day and along with out grandson and other children, parents and grandparents of the local school - not forgetting the staff, who turn out (unpaid) on a Saturday as teachers so often do - we went to see Ben the Windmill, as he has been christened and had a look inside.

Two sets of millstones, Pitstone Windmill

Belts and gear, inside the Pitstone Windmill

The post on which the mill used to turn to face the wind

Thursday 14 April 2016

Morchard Bishop to Copplestone: Day 27 of the South West Odyssey (English Branch)

The South West Odyssey was a long distance walk.

Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year finished at Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019.

Devon

The last day of this year’s Odyssey started with a promise of more good weather, if not quite as outstanding as the last two days.

Driving home would take more than three hours, so only a half day walk had been planned....

The South West Odyssey, Day 27 in green

...and it seemed expedient to shift cars to the end of the walk before we started. Vehicle shuffling takes time so it was 9:45 before we set off, back on the Two Moors Way.

On the Two Moors Way near Lower Brownstone

Morchard Bishop may be in the title of this post, but we did not quite start from there and it took fifteen minutes to reach the rather sparse Morchard Wood.

Morchard Wood

Arriving at the village itself took another quarter hour, the approach dominated by the 16th century St Mary's Church with its 30m tower.

Morchard Bishop

Rural Devon experienced hard times in the late 19th century, with a decline in mining, the mechanisation of the lace industry and the loss of the woollen industry to Yorkshire. Many emigrated or moved away - Lynne’s mother’s family relocated en masse from rural Devon and Somerset to work in the tin-plate industry in South Wales. Morchard Bishop was particularly hard hit, once on the coaching route from Barnstaple to London it was by-passed first by the new turnpike and then by the railway and lost half its population between 1870 and 1905. This may help to explain why the village has retained the longest row of thatched terraced cottages in the country and several 14th and 15th century buildings.

Old Buildings in Morchard Bishop

We passed the primary school, a sturdy Victorian construction rather spoilt by the later extension where a plaque records that Ernest Bevin attended the school in 1889. Bevin’s is a remarkable story. He was born in 1881 in the Exmoor village of Winsford; his mother described herself as a widow and his father was unknown. He had little formal education and was at work by the age of 12. Moving to find work in Bristol, he joined the Bristol Socialist Society, became the local leader of the Dockers Union and was, by 1914 a union national organiser. In 1922 he was one of the founding leaders of the Transport and General Workers Union, later becoming its general secretary. In 1940 Winston Churchill appointed him Minister of Labour in the wartime coalition government and a seat was found for him in parliament. He was re-elected in the post-war Labour landslide and was Foreign Minister in the Atlee government. He died in office in 1951.

Morchard Bishop Primary School

Leaving Morchard Bishop we met an alpaca. I described our 2013 encounter with a small herd as a ‘rare sighting of the North Somerset Alpaca, long thought to be extinct in the wild.’ I was being facetious, but I now regularly pass a herd near my home in Staffordshire, so ‘rare sighting’ was perhaps incorrect. Apparently the British Alpaca Society has 1,400 members who look after some 35,000 alpacas.

Brian inspects an alpaca, Morchard Bishop

Yesterday involved a series of descents to streams followed by steep climbs, but here, a little further south, the land undulated more gently.

A more gently undulating piece of Devon

Sometimes we walked over fields, sometimes along green lanes often following field boundaries. In some we encountered the sort of mud we met yesterday....

For the second day running Francis wonders if there is a way round the mud

.....while others were pleasanter.

A better path towards Slade Farm

Beyond Slade Farm there was a more prolonged section round field boundaries, with some impressive stiles....

Impressive stile!

.......and several right angle turns at field corners. The terrain was now generally flatter, but one long slog up beside a ploughed field seemed to me to be endless. It was not particularly steep, it just kept going and going and …...

A long slow climb beside a ploughed field

After this we soon crossed the Shobroke Railway Bridge. The scenic (at least when it is not in a cutting) single track Tarka line looks like a hobby railway but is actually owned by Network Rail and operated by Great Western, though with support from the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership. It runs from Exeter to Barnstaple, the northern section of the line following the Taw Valley, the home of the eponymous otter in Henry Williamson's 1927 novel.

The Tarka Lane from Shobroke Bridge

We followed the railway embankment for a couple of hundred metres. Although I am, of course, immune to the irritating charms of cutesy animal photos I realise I have included an alpaca in today's post, and spring lambs in the last two, so to blow away all my remaining credibility, here's a picture of two friends beside the railway. Altogether now..... aah, bless.

Friends beside the railway

Some surprisingly flat fields - at least for Devon - took us to a bridge across the Knathorne Brook. As there is a rare usable parking space on the minor road before the bridge we may well be walking the next few hundred metres again next year.

Over the Knathorne Brook

More field paths, including a long but gentle climb beside a field of beans…

A field of beans and the end of the Two Moors Way for us this year

…brought us to the point where next year we will go straight on along the Two Moors Way but today turned left onto a track towards Chaffcombe Manor which took us a kilometre closer to Copplestone. The final kilometre for this year was on field paths. On the map the footpath heads straight across the middle of a field but the farmer had redirected the path round the edge and left a large heading to walk on, which provided a comfortable path into Copplestone.

Along the wide header towards Copplestone

The walk ended at the car park fifty metres from Copplestone Cross, an intricately carved pillar of Dartmoor granite which is either a boundary stone or the surviving shaft of a late Saxon cross. Putta, the second (and last) Bishop of Tawton was murdered in this area in 910 and possibly Copplestone Cross was erected on the site of his murder.

Copplestone Cross

So at 1:00 almost precisely this year's instalment of the Odyssey was over. The walking had not been as good as 2015, the route being something of a lull between the high points of Exmoor last year and Dartmoor next year, but it had to be done. The April weather, though, treated us exceptionally well, as it had last year. Next year’s walk is also tentatively scheduled for April – can we be so lucky again?

All that was left was the long ride home, all 200 miles of it. Google suggests the quickest way from Copplestone to North Staffordshire is taxi to Exeter, fly to Manchester and drive from there - though that is no help if your car is in Copplestone.

Our journey took well over four hours. Stopping for a cup of tea and a large slice of cake in Crediton was a pleasanter (and shorter) delay than the congestion round the M5/M42 roadworks. I envied Brian's much briefer trip to Torquay.

It only remains to thank Francis for organising the accommodation and working out the route, Lynne for making sure there was a car at the finish each day and driving others to fetch their vehicles - without her contribution we would be in trouble - and Brian, Mike, Francis and Lynne for their companionship on the road and in the pub.