Hartington Traditional Stilton

Description

Hartington Creamery produce their international award-winning handmade Stilton with local milk on the historic Pikehall Farm. It is typically pierced and matured for nine weeks, resulting in a unique, tangy and creamy blue Stilton. Hartington Stilton is wonderful with celery, pears and other fruits. It is also a gourmet treat to cook with for meats and sauces or to accompany a bottle of port, red wine or a dry sparkling wine such as Amber Valley Vineyards, Lindway Brook.

All Stilton cheese is made in accordance with its strict quality license from the Stilton Makers Association and the Designate Origin UK Protected (was PDO) status. Hartington Creamery in the heart of the Derbyshire Dales is the only place in the UK outside of the large producers in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire allowed to produce Stilton Cheese.

The original Hartington creamery was established by the Duke of Devonshire in the 1870’s, producing a white crumbly Derbyshire cheese, until it was partially destroyed by fire in 1894. After standing empty for six years, in 1900 it was taken over and recommissioned by Thomas Nuttall, a prize-winning Stilton Cheese maker from Melton Mowbray, who began producing Blue Stilton at Hartington on 1st April 1900. The business was later taken over and expanded by his son, John M. Nuttall, and he expanded the business under the name JM Nuttalls. They held a Royal warrant to supply Stilton to King George V.

In 1929, the second fire swept through Dove Dairy, causing great destruction and requiring the Creamery to be rebuilt entirely. In the late 1930s, the Hartington Creamery was acquired by the Government-owned and created Milk Marketing Board and became part of what was later known as Dairy Crest. As the twentieth century progressed it became far more profitable for farmers to supply milk to the fast-growing urban townships. One by one the cheese factories in Derbyshire closed, until only the Hartington factory was left. They kept the Derbyshire cheese-making tradition alive until 2009 when the factory closed.

This tradition was reinstated on 17th October 2012 when the new Hartington Creamery Limited made its first cheese, at the historic Pikehall Farm, in the heart of the Peak District Park. The Farm dates back beyond the 1600s when it was a toll point called the Pikeham Inne. It became a farm in 1675 and the original remains of the Roman road go straight through the farmyard up into the fields. Their 200 dairy cows use this Roman-built track as their daily milking parlour highway.  Pikehall has a neolithic burial ground and monument dating settlement at the hamlet to 2000 years before the Roman occupation.

The first products produced at the creamery were Peakland Blue and Peakland White, both unique to Hartington Creamery. These were supplemented in 2014 with the return of Stilton manufacture to Hartington and Derbyshire after a 5-year break. In 2018, Dovedale Blue was added to their range and PDO status which required the milk to be sourced from within 50 miles of Dovedale, was achieved.

Vegetarian. Pasteurised cows milk.