TRETHOWAN BROTHERS
The Trethowan Borthers - Todd and Maugan - are family cheesemakers, making and selling handmade, raw and pasteurised milk cheeses. For over 25 years they have been creating small batch, award-winning traditional cheeses with the help of a small team from their dairy in North Somerset.
Back in 1996, Todd Trethowan had been working at Neal’s Yard Dairy, paying his way through college with a view to making cheese back at the family farm ‘Gorwydd’ in Ceredigion, West Wales. The art of traditional Caerphilly making had all but disappeared from the area, so it seemed a natural choice, to make traditional Caerphilly in Caerphilly! Once that decision had been made, Todd managed to apprentice himself to the only traditional Caerphilly maker left in the UK at that time - Chris Duckett at Chris’s Somerset farm. For the next sixth months, Todd learnt everything he could (along with living in a caravan, fending off Llamas and whey butter making) making traditional, handmade Caerphilly.
On returning to the family farm, Todd set about making Gorwydd Caerphilly, taking time to experiment with the recipe and process until he had the very first batch of Gorwydd ready to sell. Just four cheeses made up this first batch and these were sent off to Neal’s Yard Dairy in London with the hope that they would impress. They did and production started in earnest at Trethowan Brothers with Maugan joining the cheese making venture. Eventually the brothers were selling through independent cheesemongers throughout the UK.
Fast forward to 2013, Gorwydd Caerphilly was in full production and the cheese making was starting to outgrow the family farm. The brothers were keen to find somewhere that would allow them to build their own dairy and source milk from one single herd of cows. They had a great milk supply from various farms around them in Wales, but wanted to create a partnership with one farm to ensure a consistent high quality of milk.
In 2014 they found that site at Puxton, only 5 miles from the town of Cheddar and from where Todd had started his cheese making journey.
Once the new dairy was built, and being only 5 miles from Cheddar, the brothers couldn’t resist having a go at making a traditional cheddar cheese, especially as the history of Cheddar and Caerphilly making in Somerset and Wales had been closely linked.
By the end of 2017, the first batch of Pitchfork Cheddar was ready to mature. By 2019, Pitchfork Cheddar was winning World Cheese awards and was granted Artisan Somerset Cheddar Presidium status by the Slow Food Presidia, one of only four cheddars to be granted this status.
Today, deep in the North Somerset Levels at the dairy on Puxton Court Farm, the Trethowan Brothers and family continue to hand make Gorwydd Caerphilly and Pitchfork Cheddar, using traditional methods that have been part of British cheese making for hundreds of years.
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