Mendip Profiles > Mendip Brands > Cheddar Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
The village of Cheddar lies just immediately to the West of the Mendip area, but with its many dairy farms, Mendip has long been a hotbed of cheese production.
The village of Cheddar (where the first Cheddar cheeses are said to have been produced in the 12th century) lies just immediately to the West of the Mendip area, but with its many dairy farms, the region has long been a hotbed of cheese production. Recently, Cheddar cheese joined the technological age thanks to cheddarvision, where web viewers could watch a cheese maturing in the famous Cheddar caves.
Today this tradition is carried on by many successful producers, notably by the famous farming and racehorse-owning Barber family of Ditcheat.
Barbers production has grown from a small local affair to an award-winning national concern, selling cheese under the Maryland and Haystacks brands principally and concentrating on Cheddar but also producing a variety of other cheeses – the end product of the milk of a 1700 strong herd.
RL Clapp is another dairy farming business whose highly-prized cheese has found a national market. Based in Glastonbury, the enterprise is now ranked in the UK’s top 50 cheesemakers.
In Frome, the multinational Dairy Crest produce the famous Cathedral City brand of Cheddar; a supermarket favourite that was originally made in nearby Wells.
West Country Farmhouse Cheddar – much of which originates from the Mendip area - is one of Britain’s few EU protected brand names.
