Stilton Origins

According to the author of The History of Stilton Cheese - Mr. Trevor Hickman, resident of Wymondham in Leicestershire, the origins of the cheese are somewhat cloudy. However, “A blue-veined cream cheese from cow’s milk was produced by farmers at Wymondham as soon as pastures were enclosed within the open field system”.

The first written reference to Stilton cheese was in William Stukeleys’s Itinerarium Curiosum, letter V, dated October 1722. The cheese is also mentioned by Daniel Defoe during his famous ‘Tour through the whole island of Great Britain’, which took place in the 1720’s. ‘Coming south from hence we passed Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is called our English Parmesan, and is brought to the table with the mites, or maggots (blue mould) round it so thick that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese’.

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