Appleby's Dairy

The ethos behind the way we farm and make our produce today is very much influenced by Paul’s grandparents Lance and Lucy Appleby. Lucy came from a line of Cheshire cheesemaking matriarchs, cheesemaking being a female role, and once she and Lance had married and settled here at Hawkstone Abbey Farm in 1952 they founded Appleby’s in the stables next to the farmhouse kitchen. There it has stayed as one of the last ‘farmhouse’ cheese dairy’s left.
This heritage is such an intrinsic part of what we do, from the way we farm to the way we think about maturation. Here in our traditional dairy we make ‘edible heritage’ in a way that still learns from Lucy’s incredible cheese make notes and has an exciting future influenced by those same traditions and values.