The stall’s story

Dale End Dairy sits at the end of a lane in the White Peak, where the Dent family have milked the same herd of seventy cows since 1962. The cheese room was added in the 1990s and has changed little: milk from the morning milking walks twenty feet to the vat, cultures go in while it is still warm, and the curd is hand-milled the same afternoon.

The flagship is a traditional cloth-bound cheddar aged between nine and eighteen months. Younger wheels are milky and supple; the eighteen-month truckles have the crystalline crunch and broth-and-hay depth that make people queue. Alongside sit two seasonal cheeses — a spring cheese flavored with wild garlic, and a wash-rind made only when the cows are back in the barn for winter.

Cut pieces are wrapped to order in cheese paper and posted in Woolcool packaging, so a wedge that left the cold store on Tuesday is still breathing properly when it reaches you. Whole truckles can be reserved for weddings, Christmas and serious cheeseboards, with a note on storage and when each wheel is at its best.

The dairy hosts twice-yearly open days, announced on the Famica whats-on calendar, where the aging room is opened and the current batch is tasted side by side.