Creameries in Northern England

We're off for a three day jaunt through the North East. Leaving London on the Friday night, stopping halfway up, on to Bamburgh Castle, then back past Hadrian's Wall, spending our third night in Newcastle.

What I'm interested in is a creamery to visit on the monday? I promised my girlfriend the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes but it looks a little too far out of the way. Does anybody know of anywhere, convenient on the drive back to London from Newcastle, where we could visit a creamery? Somewhere around Durham perhaps?

Are you driving?

Yeah, I should have said that.

I would have thought Hawes would be worth the detour. Another dairy region is around Stilton / Melton Mowbray / Vale of Belvoir, Leicestershire-way. You could have a pork pie, while your gf sniffs the Stilton.....

Basically the day may look like this:

Leave Newcastle at about 10:30 - have a little poke around Durham, then drive to Hawes, and back to London by 5:00. Is it doable? Will we be incredibly rushed? It's a bank holiday monday.

Depending on the time we may get to do Durham the previous afternoon.

If it's bank holiday Monday you'll be limited to creameries that are aimed at the tourist trade. AFAIK the main stilton ones are not, particularly, so are likely to be shut. BTW, as #3 says, the stilton producing area is concentrated around the Vale of Belvoir, but the town of Stilton is some way away in Cambridgeshire - the cheese got the name by some quirk of history, but it now can only be produced in Derbys/Notts/Lincs/Leics by law. No doubt you can buy it in Stilton though.

Your journey looks a bit too rushed to me, but it depends a bit on where in London - North, Central or South, as that can made an hour's difference.

You're right about it being rushed, especially on a Bank Holiday Monday. I genuinely don't believe you have the time to fit in a visit if you need to be back in London for 5.00 p.m.

Including a break (or two) I would allow six hours for the drive that day. I live in the northeast of England and in my experience the heaviest flow of traffic on the A1 and/or M1 at weekends is south - north on Friday afternoons and north - south on Sundays. Of course, in this case the Sunday afternoon flow will be on Monday afternoon.

There's absolutely no way you could make a side trip to Hawes in the time available - the road up through Wensleydale is slow at the best of times, and Bank Holiday Monday will not be the best of times.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions tony b. Well we'll still get to see a snapshot of the North East and we did spend some time in Lancashire and Yorkshire over Christmas. You can't do everything!