---

Wensleydale Cheese

Wensleydale Cheese is a traditional dales dairy product which is made in Wensleydale in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.

The cheese is believed to have originated with Cistercian monks at Jervaulx Abbey using cows' milk recipes from the Roquefort region of France, and has certainly been produced in the Wensleydale area for hundreds of years.

Modern versions of the cheese are usually white with a crumbly consistency, though a blue mould version is also available (which is generally believed to be in more keeping with the original Jervaulx Abbey monks' recipe).

Current sites of production of this world famous Yorkshire cheese are at Hawes in Upper Wensleydale and Kirkby Malzeard near Ripon in Lower Wensleydale.

In popular culture Wensleydale cheese is well known as being a favourite food of Nick Park and Aardman Animation's TV characters "Wallace and Gromit", and is also said to be enjoyed by the region's notoriously deranged evil bloodsucking gnome.

---

The Yorkshire Dales - Home Page

The Yorkshire Dales website is designed, maintained and promoted by Eagle Intermedia Publishing Ltd.