Notes on the way
through Ayrshire - 100 years ago
DUNLOP PARISH
North-east of Stewarton.
The village of Dunlop, seven and a half miles north of Kilmarnock,
and 16 miles by rail from Glasgow, has a post office, a railway station, a
Clydesdale Bank, Established and Free Churches, a
In the Churchyard
is the tomb of Barbara Gilmour,
inventor of Dunlop cheese. She was a pious young woman - a
devout Covenanter; and, hearing of
the martyrdom of Margaret
Wilson and her sister, of
like mind, on Wigtown Sands, and being determined not to renounce the
Covenant, she fled, like many others, from her home in Ayrshire to
Ireland, and found employment in the county of Down,
where she acquired a knowledge of the Irish process of cheese making. The
persecution of females having abated after the horrible event of Wigtown
Sands, Miss Gilmour
returned to her home in Dunlop, and became a farmer’s wife. Being
her own mistress here, she at once began experimenting; and, by combining
the best principles in the Scotch and Irish principles, originated the
Dunlop cheese - more excellent than any previously known in either
of the two countries, or in any other country. The Dunlop cheese is soft
and tasteless when turned out of the chesset or mould, and requires from
six to twelve months to mature; and, to acquire the light, elegant,
charming flavour and fragrance peculiar to the best Dunlop, and completely
superior to any Cheddar or other make, it must be kept in a thoroughly dry
place, and be frequently turned upside-down, as it undergoes a slight
fermentation which heaves it a little on the top. In this long maturing
stage it loses very considerably in weight, which makes dealers impatient
to get it off their hands; and it is usually retailed before it is ripe,
and at an inferior price. New Cheddar cheese, being dry and hard, retains
its weight while kept in stock, and is also in the condition at an earlier
date to be exhibited in cuts. It is therefore the safer investment for
both the wholesale and retail dealer. As there is a greater weight of new
Dunlop than of new Cheddar from a given quantity of milk, it is necessary
and reasonable that the prime cost of the latter should he highest. The
high value which is justly set on the Barbara
Gilmour cheese for the purpose of
roasting is 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, make a highly relished and substantial meal,
precluding in many families the use of bacon for breakfast. With the vast
population of England cheese is only nibbled raw with loaf bread, usually
spread with mustard, and accompanied with the inevitable pot of beer. For
this purpose the dry Cheddar and dry and salt American cheese are the
favourites. The very dryness and saltness heighten thirst, and therefore
the relish of the beer. A certain degree of acidity in the Dunlop cheese
allays thirst, as well as hunger. This brings to mind a rare snatch of
Scottish history, left us by Dion
Cassius, the Roman historian,
who wrote about the year 230 A.D. Speaking of the Lowland Scotch,
whom he calls Maoetoe, he says--" They live by grazing and
hunting, and on roots and berries and the bark of trees"-he has
doubtless mistaken thin scones and curled oatcakes for bark--" and
they prepare for all emergencies a certain kind of food, of which, if they
eat only so much as the size of a bean, they neither hunger nor
thirst." What was this "certain kind of food," which had
evidently never before been heard of throughout the Roman Empire, from
Newcastle-on-Tyne to Jerusalem ? Cheese - old Ayrshire cheese - is our
only preparation of food of which, if
Dunlop House, one
mile and a half east of the village, is a mansion possessing unusual
interest as having been visited several times by Burns
when it was the residence of Mrs.
Dunlop, his steadfast friend and
correspondent.
The ruins of Aiket
Castle and corn mill are quite a mile south-west, down Glazert
Burn.
The parish is six and a
half miles long, north-east, and fully two miles broad, and comprises 7179
acres, 1101 of which are in Renfrewshire. Population in 1871, 1160; in
1881, 1361.
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