By 1972 there were just 68 Gloucester breed heifers left in the world. Charles Martell bought up many of the surviving cows, and began to produce cheese from their milk, not initially for its own sake, but to promote interest in the breed. Since then his own herd has expanded to 25 cows, and there has been a revival of interest by other farmers, which has increased the total number of cows to around 450. The relatively small size of Martell's herd means that the Gloucester milk is combined and pasteurised with the milk of Friesian cattle from another farm nearby. The fat content is 48%. The colour of Stinking Bishop ranges from white/yellow to beige, with an orange to grey rind. It is moulded into wheels in weight, in diameter, and deep. Only about 20 tonnes are produced each year. The distinctive odour comes from the process with which the cheese is washed during its ripening; it is immersed in perry made from the localStinking Bishop pear every four weeks while it matures. To increase the moisture content and to encourage bacterial activity, salt is not added until the cheese is removed from its mould. In 2017 Stinking Bishop launched a bid to "make Stinking Bishop to Easter what Stilton is to Christmas", including a full-scale social media campaign, in-store media for their UK-wide stockists and a competition to win a tour around Hunts Court Farm.
Availability
Stinking Bishop is an artisanal, handmade cheese and is therefore not produced for supermarkets. It currently has over 130 stockists across the UK, and can be found in artisan food stores and delicatessens, as well as in Harrods and Selfridges.
This cheese was brought to international attention in the 2005 Wallace & Gromit movie, , in which Gromit used it to revive Wallace who appeared to be dead. Demand for the cheese subsequently rose by 500%, forcing the cheesemaker to hire more people and increase production. Chef Andrew Zimmern, host of the TV showBizarre Foods, tasted Stinking Bishop during a visit to Harrods in London. In the 2011 Channel 4 show King Of..., hosted by Claudia Winkleman, Stinking Bishop was named as the King of Cheese by Winkleman and her two guests; Chris Evans and Sarah Millican. In the Monty Python Live version of the Cheese Shop sketch, Stinking Bishop is added to the list of cheeses after whose availability John Cleese's character enquires in vain. The cheese would not have been available when the sketch was originally written. David Walliams also talked about Stinking Bishop in his children's book, Grandpa's Great Escape.
