page_title: Barbara Gilmour
section_title: Dunlop cheese
hierarchical_section_title: Barbara Gilmour / Dunlop cheese
caption_attribution_description: English: The entrance to 'The Hill' farm with the motto 'Delights and Adorns' &amp; a bible held in a hand. East Ayrshire. Dunlop. 2007.
context_page_description: Barbara Gilmour was a significant figure in 17th century Ayrshire having introduced a method of cheese making which became common throughout Ayrshire and beyond, providing employment and extra income for farmers and others. She lived near Dunlop, a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland, lying between the village of Lugton and the town of Stewarton on the old turnpike road to Glasgow. Cheese made by her method became known as "Dunlop cheese".
context_section_description: Barbara successfully manufactured a species of cheese until then unknown in Scotland, being made from unskimmed milk from the famous Ayrshire cows.  Her process was copied by her neighbours and Dunlop cheese came into such demand, that whether made by Barbara or her neighbours, or by the housewives of adjoining parishes, it found a ready market. It is suggested that the spread of the cheese to other districts was largely through farmers who had settled there from Dunlop parish.
  She was something of an evangelist in the matter of making "sweet milk" (unskimmed milk) cheese, and being a forthright and energetic character she traveled widely to teach the making of her Dunlop cheese, and so stimulated a nationwide demand. This demand stimulated merchants to visit Cunninghame, buy Dunlop cheese and sell it throughout the central lowlands of Scotland. Local cheese merchants from Kirktoun also bought up the cheese and took them to Glasgow for sale in the markets.
  Barbara's system for making Dunlop was widely copied and extended rapidly to many all parts of Scotland by the end of the 18th century, even where traditionally sheep's milk cheese had been made. Nothing but skimmed milk had been used in the process of cheese making in this district, previously. All the cheese similarly made in the western counties received the appellation of "Dunlop" and in 1837 the Ayrshire Statistical Account records that 25,000 stones imperial were made in this parish annually.
  The high value which was set on the Barbara Gilmour cheese for the purpose of roasting was very much confined to Ayrshire, where a farl of oat cake or supple scone spread with roasted cheese, and a bowl of milk, or whey, or tea, or cold water, made a highly relished and substantial meal, precluding in many families the use of bacon for breakfast.
caption: A view of the 'Marriage stone' positioned over the entrance to The Hill mansion house together with the Brown family motto "Delights and Adorns" (Psalm 149)[12] and a Bible held in a heraldic Hand dexter held upright, possibly suggesting a link with both Northern Ireland and Protestantism. Jean Anderson of Craighead married Andrew Brown and lived at The Hill
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