Cheese presses

Cheese production remained an important local activity in the Yorkshire Dales until well into the second half of the twentieth century. Just as most farms kept dairy cattle, many produced their own cheese in their own dairy, and will have had a cheese press.

A near complete cheese
press, housed within a
lean-to in Dentdale

Cheese pressing is a normal part of making hard cheeses that is started by separating milk into curds and whey. The curds are then pressed in a mould to remove any remaining whey and to bind them together into a solid cheese.

While cheese was made on individual farms, the curds were normally pressed by a suspended stone weight within a contraption like the one built into a lean-to in Dentdale. The height of the weight could was adjustable to allow cheeses to be removed and replaced, and it also gave control over the amount of pressure placed on the mould. The base sometimes had grooves in it to allow the whey to drain away.

A double cheese press at
Hill Top at Muker, Swaledale

Some cheese presses were made of wood - these are less likely to survive in complete condition - but some were built entirely out of stone. Many presses were built into the walls of the farmhouse or dairy, but some are freestanding structures. There are also some complex double structures like the one at Hill Top at Muker.

The design of cheese presses changed through time, and developments that appeared in some of the later presses included metal frames and movement mechanisms.

Cheese press weight at
Spen House, Wensleydale.
Note the eyelets on the left face.

In many cases, only the main stone components of the presses survive such as the weight or the base, and these have frequently been re-used for other purposes. For example, a churn stand in Burtersett (also recorded by the Feature of the Season project) is made from at least one recycled cheese press weight. Many others can be found, re-used within buildings or walls near to the farmstead. The weights vary from roughly-shaped to neatly finished stone blocks, sometimes with a groove in each side to keep the weight steady against the frame. Many weights will still retain an iron eyelet or eyelets in the top. Similar weights can be found on some lead dressing floors where they were used in the crushing process.