Cheeses of Hawes and Wensleydale
A Yorkshire Dales market town whose creamery keeps Wensleydale cheese alive, a recipe brought by monks in the Middle Ages.
Made, aged and sold here
Best time: April to October.
Hawes is a stone market town high in Wensleydale, in the Yorkshire Dales. Wensleydale cheese is said to have been brought to the valley by Cistercian monks from France in the twelfth century, who settled at Jervaulx Abbey. Farm wives later took over the making, and in the 1930s a local man, Kit Calvert, saved the Hawes creamery from closure. It still makes the cheese today.
Wensleydale cheese
Wensleydale is a crumbly, moist, mildly acidic cow's milk cheese, white and fresh, with a honeyed finish. It was once made from sheep's milk and often with blue veins. In the Dales it is eaten with fruit cake or apple pie. The creamery in Hawes has a visitor centre where the making can be watched from a gallery.
The Dales
Wensleydale is a broad green valley of stone walls, field barns and waterfalls. Hardraw Force, a tall single-drop waterfall, is a short walk from Hawes, and the Dales Countryside Museum tells the story of farming in the area. Swaledale, the next valley north, has its own cheese of the same name.
A trail idea for Hawes and Wensleydale
- Wensleydale Creamery Watch cheese made from the viewing gallery.
- Dales Countryside Museum Learn how people lived and farmed in the Dales.
- Hardraw Force A tall waterfall a short walk from the town.
- Jervaulx Abbey The ruined abbey where the cheese's story begins.
Written by the EveryCheese desk with AI assistance. Background: "Hawes" on Wikipedia. Opening hours, markets, caves and tours change; check locally before travelling. If something is wrong, tell us.
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