Meet the Durham woman who is the mother of mustard

Yet the bull in the middle of the jar is a Durham Bull because English mustard is really Durham mustard.

An old Durham Mustard box with the Durham bull logo in the middle

The mother of mustard was a Mrs Clements of Durham who invented it in around 1720, although she may have picked up the idea from Durham Cathedral monks. By 1486, they were living in a monastic cell on the Farne Islands where they were using quern stones to grind “mwstert” seeds, and this became Mrs Clements’ pioneering method. She took the mustard seeds, grown at Houghall Farm near Shincliffe, and using various sifting processes, removed the husks and any bits of stalk. Then she ground the pure seeds down like flour in a mill to create a perfect powder – other mustards use the seeds whole or crushed but the pungency of Durham mustard comes from its grinding.

It is said that Mrs Clements carried out her grinding in an alley off Saddler Street – the café Vennels, in its 16th Century building, claims to be the birthplace of mustard. There Mrs Clements had “the knock-kneed Durham men” at work, grinding so many seeds in mills held between their legs that they became knock-kneed.

Looking up Saddler Street from the Market Place in the early 1960s: this was the home of Durham's mustard industry

The entrance to the cafe's vennel in Saddler Street, Durham, which may be the entrance to Mrs Clements' original mustardry

The cafe in the vennel is in a 16th Century building - is this where Mrs Clements ground the first English mustard?

Meanwhile, she was out on the road, selling her powerful powder in great quantities. She even got it onto the table of King George I – it even graced the royal Christmas table so it could be said to have been one of the condiments of the season. With the royal seal of approval, Durham mustard became profitably fashionable, and it wasn't just the city which benefitted – proper Durham mustard was sold in jars made by a Gateshead pottery.

Somewhere along the way, Durham mustard acquired a Durham bull as its logo. There are conflicting explanations for this. The bull was one of the emblems of the Neville family of Raby Castle, one of the greatest families in the county until the 16th Century who were benefactors of the cathedral, so perhaps it came from them.

An old Durham mustard box with a bull's head logo

The other theory is that towards the end of the 18th Century, Durham was becoming famed across the land for its shorthorn cattle which were bigger than anything bred before. Perhaps this Durham bull was pressed into service as the emblem of mustard.

For all of Mrs Clements’ entrepreneurial success, she had not patented her method of production, and rival firms soon began eating into her market. In particular, Keen & Sons established a mustard-making business in Garlick Hill, London, in 1742 – some people say that they are where the phrase “keen as mustard” comes from, although its earliest use is 60 years before their business opened.

Mrs Clements’ daughter married Joseph Ainsley, whose family had been making flour in the city since 1692. The Ainsleys milled their mustard in a flour mill at Crook Hall and had their mustard-making premises at 22 Silver Street (today a café overlooking Framwellgate Bridge).

In the 1840s, the world of mustard-making really heated up when Eleanor Ainsley married John Balmbrough. He took over the Silver Street mustardry where he advertised that he made “Ainsley’s celebrated mustard”. However, another member of the Ainsley family, William, established another mustardworks in Saddler Street where he too claimed to manufacture the original Durham mustard.

John Bambrough's advert claiming he is the true maker of Durham mustard

While the internal mustard wars raged in the city, Durham was being eclipsed on the national market. In Norwich, Jeremiah Colman had been grinding the mustard seed which was grown in great quantities on the East Anglian fens in a water mill since 1814, and in 1855 his sons began marketing it in the distinctive yellow and red packaging. They even adopted the head of a Durham bull as their logo to indicate the traditional power of their zesty accompaniment and in 1866, Queen Victoria granted them the Royal Warrant for the product that had so tickled the tastebuds of her great-great-great-grandfather George I when Mrs Clements had introduced him to it.

In the 1870s, the main protagonists in the Durham mustard wars died, and while Colman’s went from strength to strength by taking over Keen & Sons and acquiring the Ainsley name, the city’s involvement in condiment-making came to an end.

But although Durham no longer cuts the mustard on the supermarket shelves of Britain, it is a Durham bull that still looks out from the yellow and red labels of the mustard jars.