CHEESE 173 



foundation of all our wealth, that it is somewhat dangerous 

 to hazard an opinion not consonant to its encouragement '. 



At the end of the century, however, there was a rapid 

 increase in the price, partly due to increased demand by 

 spinners and weavers who, owing to machinery, were working 

 more economically ; and partly to the enclosure of commons, 

 and the ploughing up of land for corn.^ 



Cheshire had long been famous for cheese. Barnaby 

 Googe, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, says, ' in 

 England the best cheese is the Cheshyre and the Shropshyre, 

 then the Banbury cheese, next the Suffolk and the Essex, 

 and the very worst the Kentish cheese.' Camden, who died 

 in 1623, ^^^^^ "^ ^^^^ * ^^^ grasse and fodder (in Cheshire) is of 

 that goodness and vertue that cheeses be made here in great 

 number, and of a most pleasing and delicate taste such as all 

 England again affordeth not the like, no though the best 

 dairywomen otherwise and skillfullest in cheese making be 

 had from hence ; ' and a little later it was said no other 

 county in the realm could compare with Cheshire, not even 

 that wonderful agricultural country Holland from which 

 England learnt so much.^ In Lawrence's time Cheddar cheese 

 was also famous, and there it had long been a custom for several 

 neighbours to join their milk together to make cheeses, which 

 were of a large size, weighing from 30 lb. to 100 lb. Good 

 cheese came also from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. The 

 Cheshire men sent great quantities by sea to London, a long 

 and tedious voyage, or else by land to Burton-on-Trent, and 

 down that river to Hull and then by sea to London. The 

 Gloucestershire men took it to Lechlade and sent it down 

 the Thames ; from Warwickshire it went by land all the way, 

 or to Oxford and thence down the Thames to London. Stilton, 

 too, had lately become famous, and was considered the best of 

 all, selling for the then great price of u. a lb. on the farm, 



^ Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, ii. 458. 



'^ Ormerod, Cheshire, i. 129. These words were written about 1656. 



