Price range: £3.30 through £19.80
Stoney Cross is a wonderfully approachable British cheese with a smooth, supple texture and sweet, buttery flavour. Its rustic natural rind adds gentle earthy and mushroomy notes, making it creamy enough for newcomers but interesting enough to keep cheese lovers coming back for another bite.
Stoney Cross is a mould-ripened cow’s milk cheese made by Lyburn Farmhouse Cheesemakers in the New Forest. If you enjoy the rustic character of a French tomme, there’s something reassuringly familiar about Stoney Cross, although it has a very definite English personality of its own.
Made with pasteurised cow’s milk and vegetarian rennet, the small wheels develop a wonderfully rustic natural rind as they mature. Cut inside and you find a smooth, golden paste that is creamy, buttery and incredibly easy to eat.
It’s a cheese that doesn’t need to shout to get your attention. There’s plenty of flavour, particularly around that natural rind, but everything feels gentle and beautifully balanced.
There’s a wonderfully practical reason why Stoney Cross came into being. Lyburn Farmhouse Cheesemakers already made longer-matured cheeses such as Old Winchester, but ageing cheese takes time — and unfortunately the bills don’t stop arriving while your cheese is sitting on a shelf.
Stoney Cross was developed as a younger cheese that could be ready to sell much sooner, helping provide an income while those longer-aged cheeses continued to mature. It’s a lovely reminder that cheesemaking isn’t just about recipes and romance; sometimes a very good cheese starts with a very practical problem.
The name comes from RAF Stoney Cross, a Second World War airfield just a couple of miles south of the farm, giving this relatively modern cheese a lovely connection to its local history.
And what might have begun as the younger member of the Lyburn family has certainly made a name for itself, winning numerous awards and becoming a very popular British cheese in its own right.
Stoney Cross is matured for around eight weeks, during which time its natural rind begins to develop all those wonderfully rustic moulds. They might make the outside look a little wild, but they also help create the earthy, mushroomy flavours that make the cheese so interesting.
Because it isn’t aged for months or years, Stoney Cross retains plenty of moisture. That gives it its lovely supple texture and fresh, creamy character — a complete contrast to Lyburn’s harder, longer-aged cheeses.
Cut into Stoney Cross and you’ll find a gorgeous creamy golden-yellow paste with a smooth, supple texture that tastes every bit as buttery as it looks.
The aroma is gently earthy, grassy and milky, while the flavour starts sweet and creamy. As you move towards the rind, those flavours become a little more savoury and mushroomy, with just enough saltiness to balance all that lovely rich milkiness.
This is one of those cheeses I often recommend to people who tell me they don’t like anything ‘too strong’. It’s incredibly approachable, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s boring. Eat from the middle towards the rind and you’ll find the flavour changing as you go.
Jen’s note: I love the reason Stoney Cross was created. Cheesemakers still have bills to pay while their older cheeses are quietly maturing, so sometimes necessity really is the mother of invention. In this case, a very tasty invention.
Sizes and Prices
Storage Advice
Delivery and Collection
Ingredients (Allergens are listed in capitals)
MILK, salt, starter cultures, rennet
Normal opening Monday – Saturday 9am – 4pm until:
Sunday 22nd 9am – 4pm
Monday 23rd 9am – 4pm
Christmas Eve 9am – 12pm
Christmas Day Closed
Boxing Day Closed
Friday 27th Closed
Saturday 28th 9am – 4pm
Sunday 29th Closed
Monday 30th 9am – 2pm
Tuesday 31st 9am – 2pm
New Year’s Day Closed
Thursday 2nd January Closed
Friday 3rd 9am – 4pm then open as normal
After Christmas our courier delivery slots start from 8th January.
