St James is named after the late James Aldridge who was a cheese maker, maturer, champion of farmhouse cheese makers and unpasteurised cheese and friend of the Gotts.
When Martin was 16, his father bought a flock of ewes. The family then were too busy to really work out what to do with their milk and invited James Aldridge up to help make cheese. Martin was encouraged to join in. 2 years later at Manchester Farmers Market, Martin met Graham Kirkham; a meeting that would eventually lead to an 18-month        apprenticeship.

After learning to make Lancashire at Kirkhams, Martin and his partner Nicola moved to Somerset to milk goats with Mary Holbrook at Sleight Farm. While there, they had the opportunity to keep their own sheep and Martin began to experiment with making cheese.

From Somerset, Martin and Nicola moved to a small, beautiful farm on the Holker Estate whose lands overlooks Morecombe Bay with the Lake District behind it. After a year building the dairy and making cheese, disaster struck when they discovered their entire flock had a retrovirus called maedi visna for which there is no cure or vaccine, and had to be put down. This was heartbreaking for Martin and Nicola who had bottle-fed many of the sheep as lambs. Martin visited some producers in the Auvergne where the Lacaune breed of sheep is native and returning home, he continued to make cheese with milk from a neighboring farmer. He decided to replace his flock from France, where maedi visna is routinely tested for and buy Lacaunes, which are the breed whose milk is used to make Roquefort.