Cylinder mould machine

Papermaking is a skilled job, undertaken by our craftsmen, who have learnt their profession from years of training.

St Cuthberts Mill is fortunate to have one of the few remaining Cylinder Mould Machines left in the world. It is now over 100 years old, and was originally built in 1907. Our master papermakers only make high quality Mould Made papers that are archival, and visually very beautiful.

Quality

As true professionals, we pride ourselves on the quality of our papers. We are perfectionists. Paper has to be perfect to pass our strict quality controls.

Pure Ingredients

Water is a vital ingredient for perfect papermaking, and St Cuthberts Mill is very fortunate to be located on the banks of the River Axe, close to the rivers source at the spectacular Wookey Hole Caves. This is a special river providing very clean water. It has been naturally filtered through limestone in the Mendip Hills. The water has the highest level of classification for cleanliness and biodiversity.

We use only pure raw ingredients, to guarantee we only make high quality, archival grade papers. Our pulps and cotton linters are specially sourced for their cleanliness and performance.

Genuine Felt Marked Paper

To create the stunning surface finish, real woollen felts are pressed into the paper. These felts have a wonderful random texture, which adds beauty to the paper.

Surface Sizing

Depending on the grade of paper, we may pass the paper through a bath of gelatine to increase the strength of the sheet and enhance the papers watercolour characteristics.

Hand finishing

Highly skilled local people finish our papers by hand. The paper is checked for dirt, hand counted and meticulously wrapped manually. The stunning deckle edges on Saunders Waterford and Somerset are carefully created by splitting each sheet of paper by hand.

All our papers are touched by human hand in our Salle (or finishing department), whether its from embossing a stamp into the surface, creating a deckle edge, counting the sheets, or lovingly wrapping a ream of paper. All to provide beautiful paper for artists.

Environment

St Cuthberts Mill is located in the lush and picturesque Somerset landscape. We take great pride in protecting the environment we live in, making paper in harmony with the local countryside. No hazardous chemicals are released into our river, and we are proud to have large quantities of wildlife living in tandem with the mill. Our wildlife includes ducks in the ponds, trout in the river, pheasant, buzzards, foxes, badgers, roe deer, rabbits, heron, kingfishers and woodpeckers.

All materials are screened in the mill to ensure minimal environmental effect. Pulps are sourced from sustainable sources (no rainforests are harmed in making our papers), and our cotton linters are an annual crop, which are a by-product from the textile industry.