SUPPLIER / NEAL'S YARD CREAMERY
The mornings start early on top of Dorstone Hill, where Charlie and Grainne Westhead have spend the last twenty or so years building a sustainable family home and making a living producing some truly exceptional organic cheeses.
The family is inspiring, both for their intentionality and ambition. After taking the creamery part of the business from Neal's Yard Dairy, they have grown to national acclaim over the years. Their home life fits hand-in-hand with the creamery. It is a place where everything feels purposeful and thought over, but still a work in progress, always aspiring to achieve more.
As Charlie lights the boiler for the day's energy, he explains how this has been a long learning process, never striving for perfection, but always seeking to improve. He tells us how the fuel for the boiler comes from a local woodland at the foot of the hill, just next to the farm that produces the organic goats milk used for their cheeses. This is a common theme on Dorstone Hill, where life's daily needs, from fuel to food never seem more than a stones throw away.
Lunchtime is a particularly sweet time in the Westhead household, the food set before us on the table was fragrant and fresh. The kitchen in which we sat was highly personal, as represented by the collected and meaningful objects from Charlie and Grainne's lives. Our time spend at Dorstone Hill was an experience sprung from heritage and sustained by a family committed to daily improvement.
Charlie explains the inner workings of the small batch creamery which is based at his home in Dorstone Hill.
Jon Fills moulds to strain off whey for their Ragstone - a fresh goats cheese.
The Dorstone Ash is a goats cheese made from raw goats milk, then dusted in an edible charcoal ash.
