Welcome to Calderdale Cheese Company Ltd 

    Calderdales First Cheese & Butter Makers

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We at Calderdale Cheese pride ourselves on the highest of food hygieneand animal welfare standards to ensure, you the public can be confident in the knowladge that the products you purchase are of the highest standards. All our Dairy products are Lab tested to ensure they meet all the legal requirements.

Our cheese is made from an old recipe found in our cellar while we were having a UV Filtration plant installed and is believed to be over 100 years old it is said to be a cross between a Wenslydale, Lancashire and Cheshire cheese

In setting up our Business we didn't rely on any Government Grants, this is important as it reflects the fact that we didn't want our business to be a burden on the tax payer, as all grants are paid for by you the tax paying public. There are many new business's that start in the UK that boast the fact that they couldn't have done it without the help of Grants; ie, you and me paying for them to start a business. 

Contact Information

Telephone 
01422 831123
FAX 
01422 831123 by prior notice 
Postal address 
Crow Hill End Farm, Hubberton, Sowerby Bridge, Halifax, West Yorkshire, HX6 3HA 
Email: 

calderdalecheese@googlemail.com

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About Us

Crow Hill End Farm dates back over 250 years situated 1250 feet above sea level on a hillside overlooking the Ryburn Valley in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire. The farm has been in the family for almost 100 years.

The farm was owned firstly by my Great Grandfather Ernest Robinson, known locally as "Donkey" due to the fact he had moved many hundreds of tonnes of stone by hand over the years as a renowned dry stone waller.

It was then sold to my Grandfather Joe Heap who married Donkey's daughter Gertrude. They farmed it together as a Dairy farm from 1947 up until my Grandfathers sudden death in 1977, whereby my Grandmother went over to beef production for a short time until retiring and letting my father, Raymond, take over the farm. Up to this point my father had been working as an Automotive Engineer at Whitley's Automotive Components at Rishworth near Sowerby Bridge.

My father took the farm back into milk production and farmed as a tenant from 1984 until 1993 when the farm was passed to him following my Grandmothers death.

In 2002 Robyn and i were married and were considering our future in farming when the opportunity arose for us to purchase the farm from my father, so in September 2003 we purchased the farm, as there was no future supplying a dairy company with our milk due to poor prices we decided to diversify into direct sales to the public, my father has since taken semi-retirement and now lives in Sowerby Village.

From September 2003 we decided to keep all our bull calves in order to rear them and use their meat in pies made from the farm in our farm house kitchen. We sold the pies on Sowerby Bridge Market , the pies went down a storm with the public and soon we were having a small industrial kitchen built in the old barn to conform  to Environmental legislation.

The pie business grew to doing 3 markets per week, we were then offered a shop within the Borough Market in Halifax, we accepted and opened the shop in 2005 but due to  pressures of having to make pies every day to keep the shop stocked 6 days a week, running the farm and trying to develop the cheese business we finally had to close the shop in 2006 to free up more time to concentrate on the cheese making and returned to doing just 2 outside markets per week.

During this time we were having a Pasturiser installed by Harry Travis Ltd, Ripponden, and were in the process of terminating our milk contract with Arla Foods. We started to sell our milk through the shop in the Borough Market (Heap's Dairy Farm Shop), ultimately though what we wanted to concentrate on was the cheese. During the period 2004-2007 both my wife and I had been attending cheese courses and had been in consultation with the likes of Ribblesdale Cheese and Wenslydale cheese on such things as the structure of the new cheese room and the type of equipment we would require.

On the 7th February 2007 we were granted Approval by the Environmental Health to make Cheese, and on the 3rd February 2009 we were granted approval to make Butter, It has been a long hard struggle trying to balance the need to make pies to keep the money coming in and to keep a focus on the need to move forward with the building work and the purchase of vital cheese & Butter making equipment, a lot of which has been bespoke made to suit our own requirements.

We are the first Cheese & Butter makers in Calderdale, we have a unique opportunity to build a good relationship with our customers on a sound footing of traceability, environmentally friendly practices and a good understanding of food and dairy hygiene. The welfare of are animals is paramount, we pride ourselves on having a high level of animal welfare standards, all our animals are treated with the respect they deserve, if you treat them well they will reward you with long productive lives, all our animals are kept on farm until they have reach the very end of their lives, none of our animals have to suffer the indignity of a cattle market or slaughter house, when their time is near a vet is called to put   them to sleep using lethal injection.

We are members of the Humane Slaughter Association and the Wholesome Food Association and will soon be registered with the R.S.P.C.A Freedom Foods Society. All our cows are fed on naturally grown meadow grass in summer and sweet meadow hay in winter, this combination helps in the flavour of our cheese. No chemical fertilizers have been used on  the farm for over 7 years, we farm the Organic Way.  We have just 11 milk cows, all of which are named, and we believe we are the smallest commercial dairy farm in the country producing about 6 tonnes of cheese per year.

David & Robyn Heap. 

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