Gloucester Cathedral's Pilgrim's Pie

A unique pie is bringing a taste of the glorious Gloucestershire countryside to Gloucester Cathedral.

Visitors who journey to the 920-year-old building to admire its architecture, view its royal tomb and delight in its music will be able to round off the experience by savouring a delicious Pilgrim's Pie.
Inspired by the hospitality of Benedictine monks who welcomed weary travellers to Gloucester over many centuries, the dish is based on Medieval recipes and uses ingredients produced almost entirely in Gloucestershire.
Slow-roasted hogget - year old lamb - from Cotswold-cross sheep, onions, beans, herbs, garlic and carrots roasted in honey are combined in melt-in-the-mouth pastry to create Pilgrim's Pie, which is being exclusively sold in the Cathedral's coffee shop.
Meanwhile a Monk's Pie, crafted from Single Gloucester cheese, nettles, wild garlic, beans and herbs, is also available.
Both are triangular - a reference to the Holy Trinity - and marked with either a bee or a nettle.

The Stroud Pasty Company, based on a family-run farm in Cider With Rosie author Laurie Lee's beloved Slad Valley, is making the pies after winning a fiercely-contested competition run by the Cathedral.
Its recipes draw on Gloucestershire's rich food heritage with ingredients such as hogget from the descendents of the sheep whose wool played such an important part in the early wealth of the Cotswolds and Single Gloucester, one of the few British cheeses to have a Protected Designation of Origin which means it can only be produced in the county.

Almost everything used in the pies is produced by Paul and Sarah Jackson at Stroud Slad Farm, just over 10 miles from Gloucester. The flour comes from Shipton Mill near Tetbury, butter from Netherend Farm in the Forest of Dean and cheese from farmer Jonathan Crump's herd of Gloucester Cattle.