Making paper at Abbey Mills
Contributors: Old School Press; Ludlow Bookbinders; Abbey Mills (Holywell, Wales)
Publisher: The Old School Press
Published: 2020
Place of publication: Cliff Edge, Beer Hill, Seaton
Language: eng
Number of pages: 63
ISBN-13: 9781899933211
Subjects: History; Papermaking; Paper mills; Esparto; Abbey Mills (Holywell, Wales)
Notes: Title page comes after the first signature, on which is printed a compliments slip from Grosvenor, Charter (1958) and Abbey Mills : a note on its history and associations, from A specimen book of papers from Abbey Mills (1958).

"[A. Hugh] Rutt's text was transcribed from Flintshire Record Office document GB 0208 D/GC/6. It was hand-set in Romulus and Optima, and printed in 80 lb Basingwerk Parchment at The Old School Press in the summer of 2020. The coloured sheets and cover papers are Abbey Mills laid. The edition was bound by Ludlow Bookbinders. Designed, printed, and published by The Old School Press."--Colophon.

The text by A. Hugh Rutt is printed on cream colored paper; interspersed throughout this text are other texts printed on various colored papers. In addition to the Rutt text are: Abbey Mills: a note on its history and associations, from A specimen book of papers from Abbey Mills (1958); a quotation from Michael Chater's Family business : a history of Gorosvenor Chater, 1690-1977; an extract from Papermaking in Britain 1488-1988 by Richard L. Hills; prospectus for Old School Press's edition of Paper making by hand in 1953; an extract from A wanderer in Venice by E.V. Lucas (1914); an extract from a specimen book featuring Whipsdale Pard; several facsimiles from the 1958 specimen book; an extract from the 1952 Coronation issue of Printing review (number 62); a passage from Albert Camus's The plague, in Stuart Gilbert's translation.

"Abbey Mills was a paper mill in the Grosvenor Chater Group which closed in the 1990s. Situated in North Wales, it took advantage of good water and a port nearby that could bring in raw materials. In the last century it specialised in high-quality papers such as Basingwerk Parchment, Greenfield, and Royal Cornwall which it introduced in the 1920s. A speciality of the mill was making paper from esparto grass. Amongst the archives of the mill we found a typescript, written in the 1920s by the then manager, describing in some detail the processing of the esparto grass, and this text is at the heart of our new book."--Old School Press website.

Edition of 65 numbered copies.

Rare Book copy: No. 26