Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses

HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published by Collins 1937

This edition HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

FIRST EDITION

© HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1937, 2018

Illustrations © Ernest H. Shepard 1937, 2018

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008314293

Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008314309

Version: 2018-09-03

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Publisher’s Note

I – Introduction – Sir John Squire

II – Stilton – Sir John Squire

III – Interlude by the Artist – Ernest H. Shepard

IV – Cheddar – Horace Annesley Vachell

V – Cheshire – Vyvyan Holland

VI – Double Gloucester – Osbert Burdett

VII – Leicester – Henry Stevens

VIII – Wensleydale – Ambrose Heath

IX – Caerphilly – Ernest Oldmeadow

X – Dunlop – Moray M’Laren

XI – Irish Cheeses – Oliver St. J. Gogarty

XII – Blue Vinny – André L. Simon

Notes

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

Biography of Sir John Squire

About the Publisher

‘Brethren, the writer calls you this because he hopes that you are “cheese-minded” like himself, but if not he hopes that he may call you “brother-initiates”.’

Blessed are indeed the cheesemakers, and especially English cheesemakers. This classic and charming book, a timeless love letter to English cheeses – originally published in 1937 but out of print since the 1940s – was rediscovered in the HarperCollins archive in Glasgow earlier this year, enchanting everyone who has encountered it since.

The genesis for the original publication came from a correspondence in The Times in 1935, when a Frenchman declared he couldn’t source any Stilton, drawing public attention to a gradual attrition of English cheesemaking by foreign invasion, and a general English ignorance and indifference to locally produced cheeses.

In response, Sir John Squire, a notable journalist of the time, and editor of The London Mercury, collected together ‘a galaxy of talent’, with the aim of making this ‘one of the most delightful and entertaining gift books that has ever been published’. Each distinguished contributor, including such notables as Vyvyan Holland, Ernest Oldmeadow, André Simon and Horace Vachell, was tasked with championing an individual cheese, setting forward their own passionate and compelling arguments in honour of the ten varieties, celebrating the differences and the delights of each type. They then visited the district concerned, learning in old farms and homesteads the secrets of quality and production, plundering literature and local lore, as well as setting forth the history and culture behind the taste, writing freshly and vividly of what they saw.

Through their explorations, the chequered beauties of the English landscape unfold. From the ribbed hills of Dorset (home of the rare Blue Vinny), through Berkeley Vale and Cheddar Gorge, to the rich pastures of Wensleydale in Yorkshire. Scotland, too, is featured with the Ayrshire plains where Dunlop cheese is made (nearly extinct at the time of original publication), as well as the ancient town of Caerphilly in Wales, and Ireland through the Irish cheeses, of which Dr Oliver Gogarty writes so well.

That the book is charmingly illustrated by E. H. Shepard, more especially known as the illustrator for Winnie-the-Pooh, ‘is in itself a signpost to pleasure’. It has been said that this book gave him material for some of his very best work. He also toured the countryside in search of local colour, returning with more information and anecdotes to add to the store already collected.

This captivating book is a treasure trove of wonderful and amusing anecdotes, including the tale of the monstrous cheese big enough to hold a thirteen-year-old inside, the Stilton that purred like a cat and the fact that early cheesemakers randomly hid gold coins inside wheels of cheese as a sales tool. And there’s the famous cheesemaker in Manchester who used to select which Cheshire to sell based on where the mice had been nibbling ‘as they were the best judges of a good cheese’. Some Cheddars in the seventeenth century were the Birkin bags of their day – so prized that they were bespoken by members of the court, long before they were even made. It also covers the specific impact that the invention of the bicycle had on the decline of Cheddar production, as labourers returned home for their meatloaf lunch rather than hole up on a roadside with a hunk of bread and cheese.