A short drive from Dunsyre, at Walston Braehead Farm near Carnwath, Errington Cheese has been making farmhouse cheese by hand since 1985. The operation is family-run, rooted in this particular stretch of South Lanarkshire, and produces some of the most distinctive cheese in Scotland.
Errington Cheese
The business was started by Humphrey Errington, who arrived in the Upper Clyde Valley without a farming background: he had studied History at Cambridge and worked in shipping before buying Walston Braehead Farm and deciding to make cheese. He began with sheep's milk, discovering a historical connection to dairy sheep farming in the area, and built the operation from there. It is now run by his daughter Selina Cairns, and the farm specialises in ewe and goat dairy.
The cheeses are made with unpasteurised milk and reflect the landscape and seasons of the valley. All three of the cheeses below are available from the farm's own shop and online, as well as from specialist cheese retailers across Scotland and the UK.
Lanark Blue
Lanark Blue is Errington's original cheese and the one that established the farm's reputation. Made seasonally from the milk of Lacaune ewes, a French breed particularly suited to dairy production, it is produced between February and August, when the ewes are milking. The result is a raw milk blue cheese that changes character as the season progresses: sweet and fresh in spring, developing a stronger, more complex flavour as it matures into summer.
It is widely regarded as one of the finest blue cheeses produced in Britain, and has won awards at the World Cheese Awards. For those who know it, Lanark Blue is the benchmark for Scottish artisan cheese.
Sweet and fresh in spring, Lanark Blue develops a stronger and more complex character as the season advances, a cheese that rewards patience.
Corra Linn
Corra Linn is a raw milk, cloth-bound cheese in the cheddar style, made from the milk of Errington's own ewes. It has a firm, crumbly texture and a flavour that is smooth, sweet, and distinctly nutty: hazelnut is the note most often mentioned, alongside a gentle fruitiness and a brothy depth that develops with age. Neal's Yard Dairy, which stocks it, describes it as having a lightly floral quality with savoury notes of roast lamb.
Once pressed, the cheese is rubbed with locally grown rapeseed oil and matured to develop its characteristic richness. It won gold at the World Cheese Awards in Bergen in 2018. The name comes from Corra Linn, the largest of the Falls of Clyde at New Lanark, a fitting reference for a cheese made in the Upper Clyde Valley.
Blackmount
Blackmount is the newest of Errington's cheeses, and carries a name that will be familiar to anyone who knows the ground around Dunsyre. Black Mount, the highest hill in the immediate area at 516 metres, rises to the west of the village, and the cheese takes its name from that same stretch of upland. It's a small detail, but a pleasing one: a cheese produced a few miles away, named after the hill you can see from the village.
The farming landscape
The parish of Dunsyre has always been farming country. The land around the village is a mix of upland grazing and lower-lying improved pasture, with sheep and cattle central to the agricultural economy. The South Medwin Water valley and the lower slopes of the hills support the kind of mixed farming that has shaped this landscape for centuries, and it is that same landscape that gives Errington's cheeses their character.
Local honey
The hills and moorland around Dunsyre support hives producing honey that has earned a strong local reputation. The bees benefit from an exceptionally varied forage: the lower ground offers an abundance of wild flowers and hedgerow blossom, while the surrounding hills provide wild heather in late summer, giving the honey a distinctive depth of flavour that reflects the particular character of this upland landscape.
Heather honey is slower to extract than most varieties and requires a different process to handle its naturally gel-like consistency. The result, when produced well, is richly aromatic with a slightly bitter finish that sets it apart from lowland honey. The combination of natural flora in the valley and heather from the hills makes the Dunsyre area well suited to small-scale beekeeping of real quality.
Errington Cheese, Errington's Barn
Errington's Barn, just up the track from the dairy at Walston Braehead Farm, is home to the farm shop, cheese counter, and café. Cheeses can be bought there directly, along with guest cheeses, deli produce, and whey-fed pork from the farm's own pigs. The barn also hosts cheese tastings, farm tours, and seasonal events.
Cheese is also available to order online and from specialist retailers across Scotland and the UK.