Dales cheesemaker’s diaries inspire siblings’ museum trip
THEIR LIVES may be as different as chalk and cheese.
But two brothers from County Durham were so fascinated to read a blog about their ancestor, a cheesemaker in the Dales in the Victorian era, that they made the journey to the Dales Countryside Museum.
There they were able to pick up an accounts book by their greatgreat-grandmother Jane Elizabeth Thwaite, who made cheese in the 1890s.
In the book, on display as part of the museum’s Diary Days exhibition, Mrs Thwaite had recorded in detail her sales of cheese and butter, made on her farm at the head of Walden, near Wensleydale.
The museum only had scant information on Mrs Thwaite until Kevin and Gary Tallentire from Middleton-in-Teesdale visited, carrying photographs of their ancestor.
Kevin Tallentire, an office worker, said: “It’s a strange feeling to know that she held this. It’s just amazing that it has survived – to think that it was written before the Titanic had sunk.
“All I can say is that her handwriting is a lot better than mine, and that my job today is a bit different to making butter and cheese.
“That side of the family is still in farming. My uncle’s farming in Teesdale. It’s good to know where you come from and what your ancestors did.”
Museum Manager Fiona Rosher added: “How brilliant that Kevin and Gary came across the blog and made the trip to the museum. I loved seeing the photographs of Jane Elizabeth – I had no idea that any existed. The account book is a special object, a relatively rare survivor, illustrating a time when farmhouse cheese and butter making was a really big part of the local economy.”
The brothers also visited her final resting place in the graveyard of St Andrew’s Church in Aysgarth. She is buried with her first husband, Richard Thwaite, who died in 1908 and second husband, Richard Wilkinson, who died in 1916.