IT'S 11am on a sunny Monday morning and in the Brymor Ice-Cream Parlour a family is studying the list of ice-creams available. Father dithers between Rich Dark Chocolate or Ginger, mother is torn between Black Cherry Whim Wham and Strawberry Cream. Son, aged about ten, is much more decisive. "I want them all!" he pleads.

Brymor gets you like that. A bit like a more down-to-earth cousin of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, it's a paradise for ice-cream lovers. There are about 30 varieties of ice-cream, ranging from Vanilla to Brandy Orange. There are diabetic ices, water ices and even ice-cream birthday cakes, decorated to order. You can sit there all day eating ice-cream and then stagger off home with a cool bag full of the flavours you missed.

And this vast Italian-style ice-cream parlour isn't at the seaside or in a town centre, but on a farm in the middle of the North Yorkshire countryside.

Brian and Brenda Moore started making ice-cream 16 years ago, when milk quotas threatened their dairy business. Brian had started his working life as an electrician and didn't go into farming until his forties, but maybe that gave him a fresh way of looking at things.

The answer about what to do with all that milk that nobody wanted was to turn it into ice-cream, and hope that people would like that instead. They did. They found themselves a consultant at Reading University who helped them work out the ideal recipe to suit the milk from their Guernsey cows and started slowly. "It was a good recipe and we don't play about with it. Everything that goes in is the highest quality," says Brian.

Their fame has spread almost entirely by word of mouth. Sometimes it seems as if half of Yorkshire has driven out to Jervaulx for an ice-cream. Customers come from much further afield too. "We have some Dutch holidaymakers who come back every year just to see what new flavours we've got." says Brian.

Fruit flavourings largely come from Italy, "because they're the best". Sauces and nuts come from the US. Ideas for new flavours come mainly from the family. As well as Brian and Brenda, there's son Robert who's now MD, and his wife Diane, another son Peter, daughter Julie and a clutch of grandchildren.

And of course, there the cows - splendid Guernseys who produce the rich milk and cream that's the start of it all. There are not many ice-cream parlours where you can watch the "factory workers" from the window.

From the very beginning, the Moores aimed to be up-market. "There are plenty of people making cheap ice-cream, but not many making it the old-fashioned way. We want to keep it all as natural and good as can be."

They sell mainly through small specialist shops. "Our best customers are those selling cones in beauty spots," says Brian, though they also sell through some Morrisons's supermarkets.

There have been some rough times. An early planning dispute led them to up sticks, cows and freezers from Wharfedale to Jervaulx. Foot-and-mouth disease this year meant they had to close the farm to visitors and instead set up shop in Masham Town Hall. Now they're back on the farm - with one or two restrictions - open for business and the visitors are flocking back.

The ice-cream parlour has been extended steadily over the years as word got round. Now it seats 150 - lots of people to provide instant market research on new flavours. Although it offers tea and coffee, its prime offering is ice-cream. "There are plenty of tea shops around, but not many ice-cream parlours. So we'll stick to that," says Brian.

They do meals for pre-booked parties and will be extending that a bit this autumn with meals featuring another of their home-grown products - veal. Forget the horror stories of veal crates, this is pink veal from calves that have run happily alongside their sisters. Some of the veal is available frozen from the shop and there are also some good veal sausages.

But the main attraction will always be the ice-cream, in all its myriad flavours and permutations.

That ten-year-old has just about finished an ice-cream nearly as big as he is and is looking hopefully at his mother.

"I think I should try another flavour now."

One down, about another 30 to go...

* Brymor Real Dairy Ice-Cream Parlour, High Jervaulx Farm, Masham (on the road between Masham and Middleham). Tel: (01677) 460377. Open daily (not Christmas Day and Boxing Day) 10am-6pm. Plenty of parking, easy access for disabled.