AN exclusive ice cream has been created for a Lake District shop using milk from pedigree Jersey cows.

The sweet treat being sold outside The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop combines Abbott Lodge Just Jersey milk and the crumbs from the famous confectionary.

The herd at Abbott Lodge, near Penrith, can be traced back to 1763 while Grasmere Gingerbread was established in 1854.

“It’s a delicious combination and a great example of two well-known Cumbrian family businesses working together,” said Claire Bland, a partner in Abbott Lodge.

The ice cream – sold in tubs or on cones – is proving exceptionally popular with visitors to The Grasmere Gingerbread shop.

“People absolutely love it,” said sales and marketing manager Yasmine Hunter. “As soon as the sun shines people are queuing up to buy it.”

It is the latest winning ice cream from Abbott Lodge which makes more than 30 flavours.

Steven and Claire Bland established the Jersey herd in 2002 and now milk 170 cows. Their son Robert and daughter Elizabeth are also integral to the business.

Pampered and loved, when the cows are inside they are able to lie down on comfortable foam mattresses and activate massages from a special spinning brush.

A robotic milking station even enables the animals to choose when they wish to be milked.

Jersey milk is one of the most digestible for people to drink and the most efficient converter of grass to protein in the world.

In recent years, the farm has benefitted from newly-planted hedgerows and trees, a specially-created wetland habitat and restored dry stone walls.

The Times newspaper voted Abbott Lodge ice cream as one of the Top Twenty made in the UK.

Visitors to the farm can watch the milk production on a special cow cam and a viewing window in the tearoom overlooks the ice cream making process.