An unusually salty butter, with good keeping quality, formerly manufactured around Downham-Market in Norfolk and distributed via dealers in Cambridge. Mrs Beeton says; “Cambridge butter is esteemed next to fresh.” Cambridge Butter, or the Three Bottle Divine !! By George Cruikshank, 1818 (Image: www.britishmuseum.org) ‘An Encyclopædia of Agriculture‘ by John Claudius Loudon (1826) has; “The Cambridge butter is sent in small pans and has an additional quantity of salt mixed with it to insure its keeping for ten days or a fortnight and is generally perfectly free from any rancid taste” ‘History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Norfolk‘ (1836 p681) has; “DOWNHAM or Downham Market is a neat and clean market own consisting principally of two long and well built streets pleasantly seated on the eastern acclivity of the vale of the Great Ouse overlooking the marshes and fens … A large butter market was formerly held every Monday near the bridge where in the height of summer and spring about 90,000 firkins have been bought annually by factors and sent by water to Cambridge and from thence by land to London where it was sold under the name of Cambridge butter, but this trade was removed many years ago to Swaffham where it is now obsolete the growing of corn and wool and the feeding of cattle being now more attended to in this part of Norfolk than the dairy.” |
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