Cowdray & Neals Yard Dairy Cheese Festival

Saturday 11th April, 10:00am-3:00pm, at Cowdray Farm Shop

Meet the Cheesemakers:

Jamie Montgomery: Montgomery’s Cheddar, Ogleshield

Jamie Montgomery is a 3^rd generation maker of traditional raw milk Somerset Cheddar, preserving and continuing a cheesemaking tradition over a century old on the Montgomery family farm. He also co-created Ogleshield with fellow cheesemaker William Oglethorpe.

Giorgio Cravero: Selecter and affineur of Parmigiano Reggiano San Pietro

Giorgio Cravero is the 5^th generation of the Cravero family to select and mature cheese, a business established in 1855. He and his family mature Parmigiano Reggiano San Pietro in Bra, Piedmont. Giorgio selects the cheese from a small ‘Caseificio’ in Benedello di Pavullo in the Appenine mountains, and ages it gently to maintain a softer, sweeter style of cheese than is typical of Parmesan produced on a larger scale, one that should be enjoyed as a table cheese.

Martin & Hazel Tkalez: Pevensey Blue & Foxearle

Martin & Hazel Tkalez have been making Pevensey Blue on the Pevensey Levels in East Sussex since 2020, using organic milk from the neighbouring Court Lodge farm. Martin spent 15 years working at Neal’s Yard Dairy before the two began making cheese.

Rachel Yarrow & Fraser Norton: Sinodun Hill & Brightwell Ash

Rachel Yarrow & Fraser Norton have been hand-making goat’s milk soft cheeses since 2015 – first as tenant farmers in Oxfordshire, and since 2025 in Carmarthenshire, Wales on their own farm – where Rachel’s family first lived and worked in the 1970s. They have a mixed herd of over 250 goats, and aim through their farming to breed their own variety of Welsh dairy goat.

Catherine and Otto Mead: Cornish Yarg & Cornish Kern

Otto Mead runs Lynher Dairies in Ponsanooth along with his mother Catherine, who has been making nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg since the early 2000s, continuing a tradition established by farmer Alan Gray in the 1980s. More recently the Meads added Cornish Kern to their repertoire, a harder, continentally-inspired cheese.

Jake Wigmore: Wigmore, Spenwood & Riseley

Jake Wigmore has been making cheese at Village Maid dairy in Riseley, Bedfordshire since 2017, continuing the work of his mother, Anne, who founded the dairy in 1986. The family make a variety of cheeses including ewe’s milk Wigmore, Spenwood, and Riseley – the latter a collaboration with Neal’s Yard Dairy which is matured at their site in Bermondsey, South London.