Artisans

OUR HERITAGE

As dairy farmers our family have been keeping cows for centuries.  It was with this long standing heritage that Malcolm Maxwell brought his cows with him from his native Dumfrieshire and started milking in September 1950. Not a single day has passed in those ensuing 68 years that his cows and their decedents have not been milked.

Both maternal and paternal sides of the family had involvement in milk. Our family’s maternal grandmother attended the Dairy School in Kilmarnock to learn the art of cheese making in the early years of World War 1. Indeed our mother Margaret remembers playing in the cheese loft of our family farm in Ayrshire in the 1930’s.

With this heritage in mind, traditional cheese making in the family was recommenced in 1992.

THE RENAISSANCE

The early 1990’s saw numerous trips to Holland and France and courses undertaken at Reaseheath and Brackenhurst Colleges. Purchasing of traditional antique cheese equipment and conversion of old stone barns followed to emulate the old cheese lofts in Ayrshire. Cheeses from Doddington were born.

Since then our cheese makers have undertaken many study tours including making with the famous Mateo Kholer at Jasper Hill in Vermont, at England’s School of Artisan Food and with Carlo Picoli at the European School of Artisan Cheese in Conegliano in the Italian Dolomites.

Such is the commitment to the ongoing creativity and development of our great cheese.