HIGH WEALD DAIRY

High Weald Dairy run by Mark is a very much hands-on family business with Mark still often in the dairy making cheese.

In the late 1980s Mark and his parents Guy and Audrey, established a flock of 150 British Friesland sheep for milking at their small family farm in Duddleswell. The idea was to sell the milk to a local cheesemaker but, with each sheep producing up to three litres of rich milk every day, they were soon faced with a surplus. As a result, they began to bottle the fresh sheep milk and sell it to local health food shops where it was in high demand as a delicious and nutritious alternative for people with an intolerance to cow milk. Sheep milk yogurt followed next, and then a selection of cheeses, including 100% sheep milk Halloumi, then the hard, mature Duddleswell and Sussex Slipcote soft cheeses. As the cheese sales grew, so did the number of sheep in the flock, although there was a limit to how many could be kept on the small family farm. The range of organic cow milk cheeses developed gradually, initially as hard cheeses, but more recently as semi soft continental style cheeses.

By 2003, the business outgrew the facility at Duddleswell and production was moved to Tremains Farm, in Horsted Keynes, a 350-acre family farm where 250 organic dairy cows were milked on site. A former grain store on the farm was transformed in to a modern dairy where Mark, and the cheesemakers who work alongside him, have been able to widen the range of cheeses produced.

The High Weald  team of cheese makers make a delicious range of award-winning cheeses from organic and conventional cow, goat and sheep milk which you can buy directly from the dairy or through our online ordering service. All our cheeses are made using pasteurised milk and are suitable for vegetarians.