Quenby Hall Stilton
Quenby Hall Stilton, Quenby Hall, Hungarton, Leicestershire, LE7 9JF
Tel: 0116 259 5224
e-mail: enquiries@quenbystilton.co.uk
At Quenby, the large dairy building in the main courtyard pre-dates the main house and originally would have been a general purpose barn. However, from a very early date it would have contained a dairy. The main house was built by George Ashby in the early 17th century in the fashionable style of the time which became known as Jacobean after James I of England.
The estate was owned for well over 500 years by the Ashby family. They were local gentry with several branches in and around the country. In the 17th century a drum shaped cheese was made at Quenby from a recipe supplied to the Ashby's by one of their relations, Lady Beaumont. This cheese was known as Lady Beaumont's Cheese or Quenby Cheese and gained a considerable reputation when offered at local markets such as Stamford and Leicester.
In the early 18th Century, Henry 'Parsnip' Tottering went to visit his Eton school friend Waring Ashby who was the then owner of Quenby for a spot of fox-hunting, the new exciting sport over his fast hedges and grass fields. Over a glass of port at the end of a fine day of sport Ashby wheeled out his fine blue veined cheese. Tottering was utterly taken by this creamy and tasty cheese and declared that he had to have it at home every day of the week.
By good fortune Ashby's housekeeper and cheese maker at Quenby at the time was a Mrs Elizabeth Scarborough. Her daughter was married to the inn-keeper at The Bell Inn at Stilton. George Ashby immediately suggested that as Mrs Scarborough, being a diligent mother, was in constant touch with her daughter, she should each time send a couple of cheese to be picked up by Henry Tottering. This would be very convenient as the village of Stilton is on the old Great North Road from London to Edinburgh and was the first major stop on the coach route north, Tottering always stopped there when travelling back and forth from London to Tottering Hall.
Henry Tottering's love of 'Quenby Cheese' became notorious and many of his fellow travellers started to share his passion. The cheese therefore became associated with Stilton.