{"id":22873,"date":"2026-04-27T06:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/22873\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T06:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:44:11","slug":"britains-best-regional-cheeses-to-save-from-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/22873\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s best regional cheeses to save from extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are endless block versions today, but farmhouse Cheddar, which dates back to the 12th century, suffered as much as any territorial, falling from 3,500 makers pre-First World War to a handful in the 1970s. Like many Somerset farms, Westcombe, now a leading light of the unpasteurised, <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/food-and-drink\/in-depth\/cheese-storage-fridge-maturing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">clothbound Cheddar movement<\/a>, turned to supplying milk for block Cheddar after the war. It was in the 1990s that Calver\u2019s father, Richard, decided to return to the original cheese, which had been made on the farm since 1879.<\/p>\n<p>On first launch, they struggled to compete with supermarkets on price; \u201cIt was a disaster,\u201d says Calver. Now, with the focus on regenerative agriculture, Westcombe and others, including Montgomery\u2019s, Quicke\u2019s and Trethowan\u2019s, are thriving. But theirs are minuscule operations compared with industrial producers. There are two block-Cheddar makers within five miles of Westcombe that produce the same in one day as Westcombe makes a year, says Calver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m concerned,\u201d he says, despite the apparent success of farmhouse Cheddar. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a negative impact on sales from Comt\u00e9 and Gruy\u00e8re, all those French alpine styles which are very sweet.\u201d Calver believes territorials \u201ccan be harder\u201d for customers to warm to, but their flavour profiles \u201chave such depth. They\u2019re ones you put on a lunch table and don\u2019t realise you\u2019ve consumed half the wedge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Where to buy: Waitrose, M&amp;S, Ocado, Neal\u2019s Yard Dairy, The Courtyard Dairy, The Fine Cheese Co, almost any local cheesemonger<\/p>\n<p>How to enjoy it: With bread, ham and chutney, and a West Country cider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are endless block versions today, but farmhouse Cheddar, which dates back to the 12th century, suffered as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,10313,1398,3016,5018,10314,424,330,333,38,10312],"class_list":{"0":"post-22873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-cheese","10":"tag-food-and-drink","11":"tag-gloucester","12":"tag-lancashire","13":"tag-leicester","14":"tag-lifestyle","15":"tag-standard","16":"tag-us-content","17":"tag-wales","18":"tag-world-war-one"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116475321559618592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}