A new weekend festival will celebrate the rich cheese-making heritage of the Yorkshire Dales, as well as shine the spotlight on the abundance of local cheeses, preserves and chutneys made in the area.
A foodie feast awaits you at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Cheese Festival on 23rd-24th September at The Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes. It will see numerous producers and connoisseurs from across the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the Nidderdale Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty offering product tastings as well as staging cookery, cheese-making, grading and drink-pairing demonstrations.
Would you believe that today’s burgeoning cheese scene across the Dales is thanks in part to the Cistercian monks who brought their fromage-making skills over from Normandy when they settled at abbeys such as Jervaulx and Fountains back in the 11th century, and started making Wensleydale cheese.
Now the iconic Yorkshire Wensleydale has been joined by a range of Yorkshire Dales delights such as Cotherdale, Swaledale, Ribblesdale, Yorkshire Blue and Fine Fettle cheeses, and the food’s success has spawned a whole side-industry with preserves, chutneys and accessories all being created within the National Park.
In honour of this, the Festival will also stage several guided walking and cycling tours enabling visitors to explore the picturesque countryside, trace the importance of the monks’ contribution and the evolution of cheese-making and dairying across the region, tasting local specialities as they go.
The Festival will then lead into a further five days of events right across the Yorkshire Dales with restaurants, cafés, farms and attractions championing the fantastic range of food that is produced on the doorstep.
The Festival will run from 10am-5pm on both 23rd and 24th September. It will be free to attend but a small charge will be made to participate in certain activities which will be bookable in advance. Further information and booking details will be be made available at www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/visit-the-dales/cheese-festival-17
