Until the late 17th Century, cheese had been a poor-tasting product made from skimmed milk (the cream being having been used to make butter).
Around 1690 a farmer's daughter and Covenanter from Ayrshire, Barbara Gilmour, returned home after a period of exile un Ulster, fleeing religious persecution. She married Mr J. Dunlop of the Hill Farm Dunlop.
This farm is half a mile from here on the right just before the village of Dunlop. The inscribed lintel stone dated 1692 is still in place at the farm.
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Our family moved to Clerkland Farm in 1983. This was to be a new challenge in life for us all. Mum and Dad had a rundown house to make habitable and I was to make myself a living from a small farm. This was not to be an easy task when many farms were increasing in size to make a profit. It was a childhood dream of mine to live and work on a farm and my love of animals and the outdoors led me to study agriculture. Whilst at college I came across the idea of milking sheep and goats and adding value to the milk by making cheese and getting a better return. This all sounded a good idea. On leaving college I landed a job on a local dairy farm. There I worked for several years gradually buying some stock and renovating the old farm buildings. |
In 1989 cheesemaking started. The next year we entered the first two cheeses which we had started to make, Bonnet - a hard goats milk cheese, and Swinzie - a hard sheeps milk cheese, into the IFE London International Cheese Show.
They were awarded a gold and silver! This confirmed that what we were doing must be good. We returned home with great enthusiasm to continue cheese-making. Shortly after starting with sheep and goats, cows were introduced. In the early days sheep and goats’ cheeses were very specialised and we found a demand for cows’ milk cheese. Being near Dunlop, the obvious cheese to make was the famous Dunlop. |
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So from those beginnings with no capital and a run down farm, the years of hard graft and determination have definitely paid off.
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Today we are proud to have reintroduced farmhouse cheesemaking in Ayrshire, built up a herd of Ayrshire cows and a herd of goats, with their milk we have developed a range of fantastic cheeses which have won many awards over the years. The Dunlop cheese is in the final stages of PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status. There is now a shop and tearoom where you can buy and sample all the cheeses and learn how they are made. |
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