Taste the landscape in Dales Cheese Festival

​​​​​​​A herd of dairy cows chews the cud in Lower Wharfedale as the Yorkshire Dales prepares for this weekend’s Cheese Festival.

The classic photograph by Stephen Garnett at the Craven village of Storiths near Bolton Abbey may have been taken in 2017, but the scene is repeated today around the National Park. 

As dairy cows enjoy the last few weeks of being outside on grass, more than twenty Dales businesses will this week invite people inside – to tearooms, restaurants and shops – to try cheese-themed menus and delicious local produce.

The Cheese Festival on 7-10 October also features a programme of exhibitions, talks, workshops, demonstrations and other activities in venues across the National Park and surrounding area.

In a Cheese Festival blog on the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority website headlined ‘Taste the Landscape’, Tourism Support Officer Katy Foxford says local food and drinks producers are capturing the identity and sense of place of the Dales.

She said: “It is so much more than just produce – it is food and drink which helps us to establish a meaningful relationship with the land. Here people and culture are inspiring artisans to create a diverse range of local goods.”