Stilton Cheese A History: A History

By Trevor Hickman

There is a lot of controversy over the history of Stilton cheese: its origins, who first made it, and who now has the rights to the name and recipe. Trevor Hickman has delved into the National Archives to explore the story of this famous cheese. In this new book on the subject, he sets down the facts of the cheese's origin, development and history to the present day. He explains how Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire became the centre for Stilton cheese production and emphasises its importance as a leading area of speciality food production.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Release date: Apr 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781445611365

Book preview

INTRODUCTION TO AN HISTORIC RECORD

There are numerous accounts on how cheese production has developed over many thousands of years. It is possible that the first type of cheese could have been made by pressing surplus milk into a bag made from fresh animal skin. When a traveller was carrying this type of bag on horseback, the animal’s movement and the hot sun separated the curd from the whey, and the whey drained away through a hole in the skin bag. Thus a crude cheese could have been produced.

When prepared, the curd was wrapped in a linen bag and stored on a shelf with a stone weight pressing out the surplus whey. The production of pressed cheese developed alongside unpressed cheese, and this type of cream cheese became Stilton cheese.

Many authors have written about Ermine Street, the Great North Road, and the town of Stilton providing cheese to passing trade. Travellers were using this famous highway before stagecoaches began conveying the Royal Mail in 1784. This road had developed long before the Roman occupation and was the main highway in England connecting London to Edinburgh. The only means of transporting goods and people over long distances was on horseback, or using a packhorse train. On the Great North Road as many as forty packhorses would travel in line ‘tail to tail’. The junction town of Stilton was a centre catering for horse riders, packhorses and drovers travelling for long distances along recognised routes, and many centred on this terminus on the road to London where refreshment could be obtained: bread, cheese and rough beer.

A Stilton cheese stand promoting the Bell Inn at Stilton.

In 1635 Charles I commanded that a ‘post’ should be set up between London and Edinburgh. Mail was to be conveyed by ‘the post boy’ on horseback, stopping to change horses at the first stopping point at Stilton, seventy miles north of London.

As of 1985, local historians living in the village of Stilton who were involved with The Bell Inn stated that the publican and trader Cooper Thornhill, who purchased this inn in 1730, conveyed Stilton cheese to London by stagecoach. A carved wooden display features this famous trader with said stagecoach. Cooper Thornhill died in 1759 and he certainly would have conveyed Stilton cheese using horses to London. Twenty-five years later, in 1784, the first stagecoach runs commenced on the Great North Road.

Over the last two decades, myths and legends have expanded, and many errors have been published, especially on the internet. It is on record that when the ‘London Express’ halted at The Blue Bell Inn at Stilton in the 1780s, those passengers who could afford it were offered Mrs Pawlett’s cheese. Frances Pawlett expanded her business on her husband’s death in 1787. Not only did she produce Stilton cheese, she also sold it extensively in the East Midlands and London, taking over the trade that Cooper Thornhill had developed with her late husband. She also factored Stilton cheese into the weekly markets held in Melton Mowbray. Frances was living in a male dominated society. Women stood little or no chance of obtaining a controlling position in the world of finance and marketing in the eighteenth century, unless she was born into a royal house or married someone who was part of the ruling class. Frances Pawlett was one of the very few exceptions. Working with her second husband, William, until his death in 1787, she developed an exceptional cream cheese, which was popular with the ruling class in London. She became a leading figure in marketing her Stilton cheese for the next ten years. Local wealthy landowners, on her husband’s death, opposed her marketing skills. She rose above these bigoted farmers, who dominated their wives and daughters, and found her place in history.

A standard press developed to produce pressed cheese. No presses are used in the production of modern Stilton cheese. This cheese is consolidated through its own weight. If any pressure was applied the ‘blue middle’ effect would not develop. Compare this drawing with the photograph on page 94.

In the 1930s a movement began to recognise Frances Pawlett as one of the women in the eighteenth century who had contributed to the impact on how women had contributed so much in modern society. Certainly a national newspaper, The Times, published in 1935 letters supporting the erection of a monument to this remarkable woman. Through her enterprise the ‘King of Cheeses’ reigns supreme as the finest English cheese on offer throughout the world. In the period up to the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 as many as seventy Stilton cheesemakers in and around Melton Mowbray supported some form of dedication to the memory of Frances Pawlett. Today, commercialisation of Stilton cheese production takes precedence. There are no small farmhouse dairies producing Stilton cheese during the summer months from surplus milk. Strict controls ensure that there are only five registered dairies producing this farmhouse cheese. If a different policy had been undertaken in England, and small dairies had been supported, the famous English cheesemaker would have been honoured with a statue similar to that erected in the village of Camembert in France. Marie Harel is credited with inventing the modern Camembert Cheese at her farm Beaumocel in 1791. The bicentenary of Camembert was celebrated in 1992. Unfortunately, with the onset of the Second World War in 1940, the production of Stilton cheese ceased until 1947. Very few cheese-making dairies operated again after hostilities ceased. The Milk Marketing Board controlled the distribution of milk, butter and cheese. Small Stilton cheese dairies could not survive; they considered their independence was lost through bureaucratic ‘red tape’.

I have published two books on the history of Midlands Cheese production. These books have generated considerable interest and comment. Food critics writing about Stilton cheese often stray away from recorded facts. In the following chapters I have chronologically produced dated lists of how I consider Stilton cheese has developed.

Trevor Hickman

This drawing illustrates all the villages situated in the district around the Borough of Melton Mowbray. Every