Our Christmas orders are now closed. You can still buy our Cheese Subscriptions to start in January, as well as book our courses and tasting events. If you want to purchase vouchers you can do so until the 20th December but please note that it can take up to 48 hours for the vouchers to be emailed to you as we process these manually.
We have a full counter of cheese in our shop in Pangbourne so you can still come in and purchase items in store
Price range: £4.25 through £34.00
Wigmore really shows off what’s great about British artisan cheese; it’s made with local milk, plenty of care, and a real sense of place. With its elegant rind, creamy sheep’s milk centre, and ever-changing flavours, it’s a modern classic. It feels just as at home on a farmhouse table as it does at a smart dinner party.
Wigmore is one of our most local cheeses, and it is a real gem! It is a small, bloomy-rinded wheel with a delicate texture and a depth of flavour you might not expect. It feels like it’s been around forever, but it’s actually a fairly recent addition to the cheese world, created in the late twentieth century by Village Maid Cheese in Berkshire. These days, it’s become a bit of a modern classic and is often held up as a shining example of what British artisan cheesemakers can do.
Wigmore first appeared in the 1980s, right in the middle of Britain’s farmhouse cheese revival. For ages, classics like Cheddar and Cheshire were the main players, but suddenly there was a wave of cheesemakers trying out new ideas; borrowing a bit from continental styles, always using local milk, and refining them to suit our own British ways.
Anne Wigmore, the founder of Village Maid Cheese, sought to create a soft cheese that would showcase the character of high-quality local sheep’s milk. While inspired in part by French bloomy-rind classics, Wigmore was never intended as a copy. Instead, it was designed to express the grassy pastures and gentle climate of southern England.
Wigmore was a bit of a groundbreaker from the start. Back then, sheep’s milk cheeses weren’t all that common in Britain, especially soft ones, so it offered something a bit different from the usual hard and salty types.
Wigmore is made with pasteurised sheep’s milk, which is naturally richer than cow’s milk. The curds are gently ladled into moulds to retain all that moisture, giving the cheese its soft, yielding centre. The cheese develops a thin, white bloomy rind through the introduction of Penicillium candidum, the same mould used in Brie and Camembert. During affinage (ageing), which typically lasts around four to six weeks, the rind ripens from the outside inward. As it matures, the paste beneath the rind softens to a creamy consistency, whereas the centre retains a slight firmness when young.
The end result is a small, elegant wheel with a snowy white coat and a pale ivory middle that just gets more supple as time goes on. Wigmore’s flavour changes quite a bit as it ripens, which is always fun to track if you get the chance. As it matures, the bit under the rind turns wonderfully creamy. The flavour deepens and becomes more nutty and buttery, with a gentle tang. The richness of the sheep’s milk really comes through, with a touch of caramel and a savoury finish that lingers long after the final swallow.
If you let it ripen even longer, the cheese near the edge can get so soft you could almost eat it with a spoon. The smell gets earthier and more mushroomy, and the inside takes on a lovely, savoury complexity, think toasted hazelnuts and sweet cream. As long as it’s been looked after, it usually steers clear of that sharp ammonia note you sometimes get with overripe soft cheeses.
Jen’s note: Wigmore won a Super Gold at the 2023 World Cheese Awards in Norway. It was one of 2 British cheeses named in the top 16 cheeses in the World (the other was Sinodun Hill).
Sizes and Prices
Storage Advice
Delivery and Collection
Ingredients (Allergens are listed in capitals)
MILK, cultures, salt, vegetarian 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.
