It's like no cheese I've ever tasted

Rabbit holes are curious things.  For last week's tiny tuesday entry I had been stuck for ideas, and ended up poring over a collection of OS maps that Mum and Dad had given me, on account of them owning too many having a few duplicates that I didn't yet have myself.  And so with Kendal & Morecambe in hand, I was all set to blip a close-up of Lowgill, and the viaduct that I'd seen from the train so many times and which @BikerBabe and I visited in the autumn.  But it didn't seem that thrilling or original a subject for a blip really, so I carried on poring, casting my gaze over the M6 and Coniston and the little cycle racing track at Morecambe and wondering if it's really possible to walk across Morecambe Bay from Bolton-le-Sands to Grange-over-Sands.

Oh look, I have the next map as well, for Wensleydale & Upper Wharfedale.  Good old Wharfedale speakers.  I nearly bought a pair of 506s once.  And Wensleydale…cracking cheese, Gromit!  You have to say it by sticking out your tongue, Aardman Animations-style as you say the "d".  I didn't know anything about the history of the cheese, though, so I asked Alexa:

"Wensleydale cheese was first made by French Cistercian monks from the Roquefort region, who had settled in Wensleydale. They built a monastery at Fors, but some years later the monks moved to Jervaulx in Lower Wensleydale. They brought with them a recipe for making cheese from sheep's milk. During the 14th century cows' milk began to be used instead, and the character of the cheese began to change."

I'd never heard of Jervaulx either, but eventually realised it was off the edge of my map.  I wondered where Wensleydale cheese was made now, and Wikipedia, from whom Alexa had been cribbing anyway, said:

"The first creamery to produce Wensleydale commercially was established in 1897 in the town of Hawes. Wensleydale Dairy Products, who bought the Wensleydale Creamery in 1992, sought to protect the name Yorkshire Wensleydale under an EU regulation; Protected Geographical Indication status was awarded in 2013."

It took a bit of finding, but there was Hawes on my map, slap bang at the western end of the Wensleydale valley.  I wondered if the factory was still there.  And a bit more internetting revealed that yes, there is indeed the Wensleydale Creamery!

I then went down a different part of the rabbit warren and read all about Peter Sallis who of course was the voice of cheese-loving Wallace, and then I read all about Bill Owen, who looks surprisingly dapper on Wikipedia, and then I read about all the characters in Last of the Summer Wine, thinking about @BikerBabe's visit to the cafe in Holmfirth.  I disliked LotSW intensely, actually.  It was old people doing Morecambe & Wise slapstick that I found dreadfully unfunny.  Eventually I'd had my fill of history, and I went off to photograph candles instead.

Which is why I have a photograph of the village of Hawes.  The creamery is the big building just beside the "H".

Today is the 12th of February and it's Bagpuss' 50th birthday, but I think everyone in Britain knows that.  But why Hawes, Ms. Arell? And why today?  Well, maps brought me Wensleydale, funny animation, cheese, monks, a creamery, veteran TV actors, unfunny television, and back to animation.  Today is the 12th of February and it's Gromit's birthday too.