The only cheese-makers in Calderdale

• 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. It has been in the Heap family for almost 100 years.

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

 
• 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 until my Grandfathers sudden death  in 1977, whereby my Grandmother went over to beef farming for a short time until retiring and letting my father take over the farm. Up to this point my father had been working as a Automotive Engineer at Whitleys Automotive Components at Rishworth near Sowerby Bridge.

 
• My father went back into Dairying and farmed as a tenant from 1984 until 1993 when the farm was passed to him following my Grandmothers Death.

 
• In September 2003 my wife and I were able to purchase the farm from my father; he has since taken semi-retirement

 
• As there was no future supplying a dairy company with our milk due to the poor prices we decided to diversify into direct sales to the puplic.

 
• From September 2003 we decided to keep all our bull calves in order to rear them and have them killed. We used the meat in meat pies made from the farm in our little farm house kitchen. We sold the pies on the Sowerby Bridge outside 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 Legislations.


• 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 the pressure of having to make pies every day to keep the shop stocked 6 days per week, running the farm and trying to develop the Cheese business we finally had to close the shop in 2006 to give us more time to concentrate on the Cheese Making and returned to doing just 2 outside markets per week.
 
 
• During this period we were having a Pasturiser fitted by Harry Travis Ltd of Rishworth and were in the process of terminating our milk contract with Arla Foods.

 
• We started selling our milk at 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 Wensleydale 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. 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 forwards with the building work and the purchase of vital cheese making equipment, a lot of which has had to be bespoke made to suit our individual requirements.

 
• Now we are the only cheese makers in Calderdale and the only cheese makers in West  Yorkshire registered with the Specialist cheese makers Assosiation. We now have a unique opportunity to build a good relationship with our clients on a sound footing of traceability, Environmentaly friendly practices and a good understanding of food and dairy hygiene. 

 
• The welfare of our animals is paramount. We have very high standards of animal welfare. None of our animals are ever sent to a cattle market and then on to a slaughter house to be shot. When they reach the end of their life which, in our case can be up to 20 years old, they are treated with respect and are put to sleep using lethal injection by a vet, in our own shed.

 
• 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 Hay in the winter. This combination helps in the flavour of our cheese.

 
• All our cows are individually named. At the moment we have Scratter, Josephine, Daisy, Little Ada, Beatrice, Penny, Lily, Dolly daydream, Gracouse, Candy and Prudence. We only have 11 cows and we believe we are the smallest commercial dairy farm in the country. But with our few cows we can make upto 6 tonnes of cheese per year.
 

Thanks for taking the time to read this short introduction about our farm and what we do.

David & Robyn Heap