Here at Park Farm, my family have been happily milking a herd of cows for three generations. A few years ago we thought we would try making cheese. The cheese is made in the same buildings in which my grandmother made her cheddar. The cows are just a few hundred yards away.
The local Bath Cheese was once well known, and in its heyday was recommended to Admiral Lord Nelson in a letter from his father (dated 1801).
We found the recipe in an old grocer’s recipe book. It stipulates that the cheese must be made with full cream milk, that salt be sprinkled on the young cheeses with the aid of a feather, and that the cheese was soft and covered with white mould.
Today the Bath Soft Cheese that we make (without the aid of feathers) frequently wins awards and we supply shops and delicatessens all over the country.
As well as our original Bath Soft Cheese we produce a variety of other cheeses: soft, hard and blue. All of them made with old fashioned manual methods which gives the cheeses more flavour.
Farming can be challenging, but it is also very fulfilling, and the changing seasons, the drama of the weather and their effect on the landscape can be breathtakingly stunning. There is something uplifting about the spectacle of a herd of sun glossed black and white cows on a field of brilliant green. In the autumn when the nights are long and wet and the grass has stopped growing, it is very gratifying to provide the herd with silage to eat, straw to lie on, and shelter from the cold.
There is an old farming saying “Look after your cows and your cows will look after you”