Handmade Artisan Cheese from the Heart of Teesdale

Who Are We?

Teesdale Cheesemakers was formally Leaside Cheesemakers, founded by Brian and Esme Dedman in 2012.  

We are a husband and wife team Allison and Jonathan Raper, who took over the business in January 2016.

We use milk from the family farm to make our cheeses.

In January 2019 we moved to new premises and our café and small shop Cheesedale opened on November 15th 2019. 

Cheesedale is a cheese-centric cafe and shop where the menu revolves around the cheese we make on the premises.  You can take a peek into the dairy and see where the cheese is made, meet our rare breed pigs who are fed on the whey from the cheesemaking and enjoy a great cheese board and cup of coffee in the cafe.  

Our menu changes in line with our produce on the farm but we always have our award winning cheeses.

We are open 10-4 every day except Monday.

You can follow our adventures on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Our Products

We make eight soft cheeses: 

Teesdale Blue - a mild creamy Blue (cow's milk)

White Hilton - a complex creamy white cheese that changes as you chew it

Teesdale Goat - a mild mellow goat with our distinct rind to finish it off

Barney Brie - a robust farmhouse brie

Doris - a dales style cheese, crumbly in the middle with a soft edging

Nanny Blue - a blue goat cheese with a mild rocquefort flavour 

Allison's Garlic Special - inspired by a maltese recipe and a nod to Allison's maltese roots.

& our flavoured Teesdale Curd cheeses, dessert cheeses designed to pimp up your pud!

We also sell organic kefir

How to get your hands on our cheese

We sell at a number of local farmers markets and food festivals see  'Events', and we can arrange local delivery for larger orders. 

We also supply a number of local outlets who are listed on this site under 'Where to Buy'.   You can find the restaurants that use our cheeses on their menus there too.  

Finally you can buy our cheese directly from us at Cheesedale cafe & shop or we can arrange a postal delivery. Just drop us an email for details. 

Opening times are 10am to 4pm every day except Monday. 

Trade enquiries welcome.  Please contact for further information.

with thanks,
Allison and Jonathan Raper