Cracking Cheese Gromit

Being a big fan of cheese (as well as the Wallace and Gromit movies) I’ve been meaning visit Hawes for a while … and finally got around to it at the end of February 2025.

A night at the Auction Mart

The Hawes Auction Mart allows motorhome to stop overnight for £15, collected via an honesty box near the toilets. For this you get decent, mostly level parking (the best places being at the back and around the edges), toilets, grey/toilet waste emptying and fresh water refill. The village with restaurants, shops and pubs is a short walk away. The Wensleydale Creamery is also a short walk across a field footpath if you don’t fancy parking there.

The Wensleydale Creamery

The Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes is the home of Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese (Wensleydale is a generic type of cheese, so its not guaranteed to come from here unless it is Yorkshire Wensleydale). The creamery and the cheese has become much better known recently because of its association with the Wallace and Gromit movies. Cheese has been made in the area since it was introduced by Cistercian monks around 1150.

You can visit the Creamery with the attractions including a shop, a cafe, a restaurant, cheese making demonstration, cheese tasting and a cheese making museum with a view of the factory (note that the factory doesn’t work at weekends so you’ll be able to see it but nothing will be happening). There’s also several photo opportunities with characters from the Wallace and Grommit films.

On arrival the parking looks a bit tight but there is another car park at the back (follow the signs) which, while it doesn’t have any designated motorhome bays has plenty of space and we were able to get our 7.5m Adria in with no problems by using two spaces.

The shop, cafe and restaurant provide very good and reasonably priced food and gifts - most of them involving cheese, there’s also a dedicated cheese shop where you can try and buy various different types of Wensleydale cheese - if blue cheese is your thing make sure you try the blue Wensleydale.

The tour starts with a cheese making demonstration showing how Wensleydale cheese is made, you can then move on to the cheese museum and cheese tasting.

A Wander Around Hawes

Hawes itself is a lovely village to wander around - being the home to plenty of shops, cafes and rather more antique dealers than it would seem possible for one village to support. There’s also a National Park visitor centre where you can find out more about the surrounding area. Parking in the village would be tricky with a motorhome but it is easily walkable from the creamery car park and there is some parking at the visitors centre.