Women in Whey 2026 - celebrating International Women's Day

To celebrate International Women's Day we wanted to highlight some of the amazing cheeses that are being sold out our counter and online right now!

Stilton: a surprising one for the list perhaps, as this cheese is associated with current big names in the cheese industry Robin Skailes (Cropwell) and Billy Kevan (Colston) but did you know that this most famous of English Cheeses as we know it today was created by a woman? Frances Pawlett is widely recognised as the ‘Mother of Stilton’, a cheese maker based in Melton Mowbray in the 1700s – she gave the cheese its distinctive shape, texture and taste that we know today.

Corra Linn: a second generation cheese maker and farmer from Lanarkshire, Selina Errington created Corra Linn in 2008 – her father had been making Lanark Blue since the 1980s, but each year there was a natural glut of sheeps milk and thus a long aging, hard cheese was created to preserve this amazing raw milk. Today the cheese making is headed up by her sister in law Angela. 

Quickes Cheddars: The Quickes family have been farming their land in Devon since 1540 and are one of the oldest cheese making families in the country. They specialise in Cheddar making, and we love their unusual goat’s milk cheddar. Mary Quicke, legend of the cheesemaking world, founder of the academy of cheese, recently handed over the mantle to her daughter Jane – 15^th generation of the family to steward their land.

Baby Yorkshire Blue: Shepherds Purse Artisan cheeses was created by Judy Bell in the 1980s and today is run by her daughters Katie and Caroline. A proud, independent family business from the beautiful Yorkshire market town of Thirsk. Originally Judy focussed on sheeps milk, with a mission to create products for cow’s milk allergy sufferers, including yoghurts and icecream but quickly the obsession for cheesemaking took over and now they make multi awacheeses made with sheep, cow and even a buffalo blue! We collaborated with the family in 2024 to create the Paxton’s exclusive ‘Baby Yorkshire Blue’.

Wigmore: a luscious soft sheeps cheese, named after its maker and creator, Anne Wigmore. Village Maid Cheese was started by Anne Wigmore in 1986 after she had been working for the National Institute for Research in Dairying in Shinfield for 10 years, initially in the microbiological department, and then learning her craft of cheese-making in their research dairy. Together with her husband Andy and staff the company now produce many award winning cheeses. Anne Wigmore began making cheese at the National Institute for Research in Dairying (NIRD) in 1984, having worked as a microbiologist at the establishment.

St Jude: Julie Cheyney fell in love with cows when she started milking them as a teenager, leading to a fascination for milk, particularly raw milk, and what can be made from it. St Jude is just one of the fantastic cheeses that Julie makes with raw milk with cows that graze on the edge of the Norfolk Broads. Inspired by a St marcelling, its gentle, bright and lemony when young, ripening to a buttery spoonable cheese. 

Kirkhams Lancashire: Our Lancashire is made by Graham Kirkham - son of the original 'Mrs Kirkham', in the "black land of Fylde" north of Preston in Lancashire. The pasture land is near the Irish sea and the tasty quality of the milk and resulting cheese is said to be due to the wind-driven sea salt which impregnates the pastures. Mrs Ruth Kirkham began making Lancashire Cheese at Beesley Farm nearly 50 years ago. This was a skill she had been taught by her own mother and has now passed onto her son Graham, making him the third generation of cheese maker in her family. In the early days Ruth and husband John started the day with the first milking of their herd and then the milk was pumped straight into a small vat in their little dairy next door. This was then turned into cheese. They had only two presses and would make just four 20kg cheeses a day.

Want to try a bit of everything? Why not explore our limited edition Female week of cheese. 7 different peices of cheese to try in one box with free delivery!