Orkney’s lush pasture has been the source of high-quality dairy products for centuries. Cheese and butter-making was the logical thing to do on remote islands with a strong self-sufficiency ethic. When Patrick Rance, a farm cheese campaigner, visited Orkney in the 1980s, he found 14 farms on the Isle of Shapinsay making farm cheese with milk from the house cow.

At Girnigoe farmhouse, Jean Wallace had five cows and was using their milk to make her unique soft, fresh, crumbly cheeses, selling the surplus to shops in Kirkwall. Rance was so impressed, he thought she should sell it further afield and her Shapinsay cheese became highly sought after in mainland Scotland and beyond.

New legislation in the 1990s meant that she could not continue without changing all the wood in her little creamery to stainless steel. She turned to offering bed and breakfast instead. Others gave up.

Today, though bulk Orkney cheddar is made at the Kirkwall creamery, only one farm cheese remains. Hilda Seator produces Grimbister farm cheese with milk from about 20 Friesian cows that graze her family’s own farmland. It’s available from Orkney’s independent shops and on mainland Scotland.

Grimbister Farm Cheese, Finstown, Kirkwall, Orkney, 01856 761 318, grimbister@orknet.co.uk ; Orkney Quality Food and Drink, www.oqfd.co.uk

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