Background

It was in 2017 that John Bailey & Heather Benbow decided to look seriously at building an artisan cheese dairy to make cheese from their flock of sheep. The pair previously owned a significant veterinary practice which they sold and were looking for a bit of adventure. Well they certainly found it….

The couple had purchased Wakebridge Manor Farm which was previously a dairy farm and a holiday caravan site. The location has heritage, having previously been owned by the grandfather of Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse. The site’s ancestry could be traced back to William De Wakebridge, an aristocrat and local benefactor. He built a significant chapel on the site in the mid 1300’s.

The cheesemaking project really kicked off at the end of 2019, just before covid kicked in. The couple commenced by getting the family together and benchmarked the existing competitor set. The samples were procured from various speciality cheese shops and leading retailers. 

The exercise was an eye-opener and it transpired that producing something that tasted delicious was a good starter for ten!

A joint decision was made to produce two types of sheeps cheese, the first being a hand pressed cloth bound truckle and the second a semi hard blue of distinctive character.

In conjunction with a local cheesemaker, the project took shape. The project was scoped to handle 3,000 litres of sheeps milk a day – ambitious to say the least. John & Heather’s son-in-law Dan was a brewer and had successfully made cheese in his kitchen at home. It was therefore a foregone conclusion that Dan would be the cheesemaker and run this exciting new facility.

John & Heathers’ plans were ambitious. With the help of a grant from the Rural Payments Agency – and some free publicity from a television documentary, the project got underway…..They submitted a planning application for a cheese dairy, a sheep shed for 650 milking ewes, a milking parlour, a boutique hotel, a restaurant and outside bar. After many delays the plans were passed and building commenced.

The project was not helped by Covid and the war in Ukraine. The first development cheese was produced in June 2023.

The next steps were to achieve the stringent accreditations required by the local environmental health department and permission to supply the public was granted in December 2023.

Now production could start in earnest…..

The newly formed business is now in the throes of courting premium speciality outlets and known industry top class distributors, with a view to commencing supply in the middle of April.

Watch this space….