This is an exceptionally fine pair of moulds used to make custom notepaper for Ryman's, the stationers.

 

These moulds were used for two book printing papers - Chilham (white) and Canterbury (light toned, sometimes called Linton). The moulds were made by E Amies & Son (date unknown).

These watermarks were associated with the Royal size (505 x 645 mm, 20" x 25") of a much wider range originally produced for the paper merchants F J Head & Company. (After Mr Head was killed in World War I, his partner Frederick A Brett joined J Barcham Green & Son and we took over the range of papers). The moulds have an FJH monogram and two images, I believe the latter were introduced in the 1930s.       

The Head represents that of Christ as transferred to the kerchief of St Berenice (or Veronica as it is said to be the Vera Icon or true image) when she wiped his face as he carried the cross to Golgotha. The date of 1399 is entirely spurious. My Grandfather Jack Green told me he put it in as anyone would know this paper could not have been made in 1399! Actually it could have been as the design idea of the mediaeval laid pattern and watermarks was meant to emulate papers of that period.
The Hand is said to be that of the Pope (although we don't know which one). This is said to be distinguished by the ring on his thumb.
As the photograph of Christ's Head is out of focus, look at moulds M254 which have very similar marks; spot the difference!

A pale chrome green paper made on these moulds called Boswell was also made on these moulds; it was my Father Rémy Green's favourite paper which he used for his own letterheads.

© Copyright Simon Barcham Green 2012. Not to be copied or reproduced without written permission.


These moulds are amongst my favourites and were used for one of the later printing papers stocked at Hayle Mill. The following story has been adapted from "An Illusive Image" an article that was first published in Fine Print, The Review for the Arts of the Book, Vol.XII (3), July 1986, pp.136-143. You can also obtain a reprint of the article in issue No. 62 (April 2007) of The Quarterly - the journal of the British Association of Paper Historians - see http://baph.org.uk/quarterly.html. This article includes many illustrations of early designs for the Sandwich watermark as well as many other watermark stories.

One of the most difficult watermark projects we executed in the later years of Hayle Mill has been for a particularly difficult client - ourselves. For many years we occasionally made a paper for the Plantin Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium with a Compass watermark. Not only was this heavier (150g/m²) than most printing papers, it also has a particularly subtle cream shade. Following the last making of Compass, we decided to produce a version of this paper as an addition to our stock range. As none of our book papers were wove, we decided the new paper would be wove, 150g/m², and be a rather large royal size (51.5 x 67cm). We ran trials and determined the specifications. We were then stuck for a name. Gabrielle Falkiner of Falkiner Fine Papers Limited, one of our London stockists, suggested “Sandwich” on the rather dubious grounds that this East Kent town, though much smaller than Antwerp, had an ancient maritime history like that city and was one of the nearest English ports to it. As we usually gave our papers the names of British towns and villages, this seemed a good choice. 

Two production runs were produced without watermarks because we were having difficulty devising them: my mind was blocked with recurrent visions of symbolic sandwiches in cross-section. We obtained a copy of the town’s coat of arms which was far too complicated for a small watermark. At this stage I decided to pass the problem to one of our Hayle Mill characters - Alwyn Whitlock. Al rented space for his design and sign writing business and had tackled a variety of interesting projects: he painted and lettered a Morris Minor dray for a small brewery, also located at the Mill, and was commissioned by The Science Museum to paint a 17-foot-high by 30-foot-wide halftone image of an eye (each dot was up to six inches across) on a temporary partition which had been designed by my wife Maureen Green for the Launchpad gallery. I explained the brief, which had some unusual points. For example, most bespoke watermarks will appear in only a few books and will reflect the style of the printer. Ours would appear in many books and should not clash with them. Apart from our BG monogram it would be one of only a few standard watermarks we had introduced since the War (the first one, that is!). It would have to last for maybe fifty years and thus not become dated. We wanted it to look twentieth century in a quiet way. However, a bit of tradition would not go amiss. In addition it should work in folio, quarto, and octavo books, and perhaps also for unfolded prints. Finally it was to appear in a paper which is on the heavy side for a detailed watermark.

Al scratched his head and a few days later showed me four pages of rough drawings. Nautical ideas abounded and various sandwich puns were in­evitable. We felt that the idea of a simplified ship was worth developing further. These little boats were typically Kentish in the days of the Cinque Ports, of which Sandwich was one.  The Cinque Ports undertook to defend the coast from French attacks in medieval times in return for a variety of customs concessions by the king. Naturally they also looted the French shore when the chance arose and made a healthy living from smuggling. A few waves seemed in order, but they had to be choppy because the Bank of England has the sole rights to symmetrical-wavy line watermarks. Indeed the bank had threatened my Great Great Grandfather John Barcham Green with jail for an alleged infringement. 

The ship was set sail at 45° in one corner (so fitting all book formats)

We wanted to include our BG logo, “hand-made,” and the year, all in only one other corner so the sheet would not be cluttered. Al devised a new symbol combining all these items. 

 

The next problem was that if we used a wire heavy enough to show clearly in the sheet, it would either degrade the detail or require much too large a mark. We decided on a two-pronged approach. Firstly, in line with our wish to be fairly discreet and not compete with the book designer, we would accept a slightly faint mark, and secondly, a flattened wire set on edge would be used. 19swg wire was rolled to give a height of 0.914mm (20swg) and a width of 0.416mm (27swg). Incidentally, it is easier to form fine detail in wire rolled to be higher than it is wide. The mast was made by soldering two rolled wires together and filing to the correct taper. The resulting design, while having a traditional basis, has a cleanness of line which would not be associated with early watermarks. Initially it was intended to make an electrotype etched plate but, as this had a tapered cross-section, the detail would have been blurred, and so the rolled wires were formed by hand. The marks were made and soldered to the moulds by W. Green Son and Waite Ltd. of St Pauls Cray.

Developing a market for a new stock handmade printing paper is a long term business. Once the paper is launched it takes time for its potential specialist customers - limited edition printers - to become aware of it. Their own projects often take some years and choice of paper is an important stage to be considered alongside design. Books are often designed to fit available paper sizes. So it took some years for Sandwich to become a success, no doubt aided by publication of this article in Fine Print which was by far the most influential journal in its field at the time.  Eventually Sandwich became established and popular and indeed it was one of the first stock lines to sell out when Hayle Mill ceased production in 1987.

Watermark images needed

Many of my posts are about watermarks as they exist on the moulds themselves. It would be nice to illustrate these posts with images of the watermarks in the paper to; the article above is an example of this. I have neither the skills nor inclination to capture watermark images and often I don't have paper samples that I would feel safe to post. If any reader has images of Hayle Mill watermarks that they would be willing to appear on my site - with full credit - please contact me at simongreen@aol.com.

 

I have been feeling somewhat guilty about not posting recently due to starting a new job, dealing with all sorts of interesting matters and life in general. 

However one thing leads to another and I recommend you visit http://www.whimsie.com/antique%20art%20supplies.html which has some very nice watermark images. The site owner Ron Bodoh had written to me about Crisbrook (see last post) and out of curiousity I Googled him and found out that he sells a very wide range of sheet metal and wire which should interest anyone wanting to make their own moulds (see http://www.whimsie.com/) with an unexpected subsection about hand made paper and fine art supplies. No doubt Ron will now tell me how he got interested in that area - maybe because they all use copper and brass sheet .....

I'll try and get some more moulds up very soon.

 

These are a particularly historic pair of moulds as they were used to make the last full scale production batch of hand-made paper at Hayle Mill and hence in the United Kingdom. 

In April 1987 we reluctantly decided that the Mill would have to close since financial viability had been so badly undermined by government policies over the previous eight years. To allow adequate time to help employees find new jobs, use up raw materials and provide good stock for the inevitable, but short term, sales boom, we decided to continue production for about three months.

Soon after making the decision I contacted Claire van Vliet of the Janus Press in Vermont and we conceived the idea of a book of histories of various papers which would be illustrated with samples of them. This needed a special paper for the text to be called Finale. Claire agreed to design a watermark and to buy paper for the project.

In those days, fax was the leading edge of communication (how the world has changed since) and I was thrilled when the calligraphic design arrived. I could also see various challenges from variable line width and thin, curving swash lines but decided to go ahead with it without alteration.

10,000 sheets of Finale were made in the last two weeks of production. As our lead vatman of the time and other crewmembers had got jobs very quickly, I invited Norman Peters to return for few weeks. Norman was 77 at the time and had retired a few years previously. Nevertheless on his first day back he made 1,000 sheets of Crisbrook and, as was his tradition, went home looking spotless with clean white shirt, shiny black shoes, no traces of pulp on him and looking as though ready to start another day's work. This was the same every day that I worked with Norman, a superlative craftsman. Alongside him was Andrew French who had joined the business from school about ten years before. All the remaining staff and I also made a few sheets of Finale.

If you examine the watermark closely you will see it is not as simple as Finale as Claire incorporated the letters JBG as well. The paper was in most respects a lighter weight version of our Chatham Vellum paper made from 100% flax fibre and  Aquapel sized.      

For various reasons the book project did not proceed but in 2008 Claire published "Papermaking at Hayle Mill 1808-1987" by my wife Maureen Green PhD - see   http://papermoulds.typepad.com/simon-barcham-greens-pap/papermaking-at-hayle-mill-1808-1987-.html  which she printed on Finale. 

This did not use up all the stock and I currently have 5,000 sheets of Finale for sale for a suitable large edition.

The moulds were made by E Amies in June 1946 and the watermarks were made and fitted by Ron MacDonald of Amies. Due to their intricate nature and the risk of damage, the watermarks were soldered to the moulds - a rare exception for our moulds which usually have the marks stitched on. Since 1987 this has led to some whitish discolouration in the surrounding wire.

 

Prior to 1987 the deckle had suffered major damage to one corner joint. As illustrated, a rather simple repair kept the deckle serviceable, which it still is.

These moulds made by Amies probably date from the mid 20th century although the watermarks were added in the 1970s. In 1974, prior to taking over Hayle Mill from W & R Balston Ltd, I succeeded in securing a large contract from the Richard de Bas museum in Ambert, France. 

Richard de Bas is one of the oldest papermills in Europe and is well worth making a journey to - http://www.richarddebas.fr/. 

After it closed commercially in the 1950s it was rescued by a remarkable man Marius Peraudeau. By the 1970s it was so popular with visitors and in sales to various printers and artists that its capacity was insufficient so we were asked to supply the considerable shortfall which we did for several years. This in turn helped to rescue Hayle Mill as it was a good proportion of our income. The contracts were a secret (partly as M Peraudeau told me we made their paper better than they did)  and inadvertent clues were a source of intrigue for our US importer Vera Freeman of Andrews Nelson Whitehead.

M Peraudeau later started a spin off museum at Vallis Clausa   in Provence (http://www.avignon-et-provence.com/making-of-paper/vallis-clausa/) and we made paper with those watermarks too. Some moulds used for Richard de Bas were  made especially for them and returned to France when the contracts ended. Others were adaptations of our own moulds and are now in Bavaria and Japan. 

The "art et valeur Paris" watermarks were fitted to existing moulds for Richard de Bas to supply lithographic publishers Art & Valeur and I would like to think the paper was used for a series of Salvador Dali lithographs http://www.ebay.com/itm/Salvador-Dali-Alchimie-des-Philosophes-10-PC-Suite-COA-/350287737296. A copy of this suite in two volumes with text sold in June 2011 on eBay for $139,000!

 

The moulds also carry the "Auvergne a la Main" (Auvergne handmade) watermark that appeared in all Richard de Bas paper. Don't believe everything you see in a watermark! It is worth remembering that it was common practice for centuries for mills to subcontract work out for a variety of reasons.

Single mould and deckle with mirror plates for wall mounting. 1 rod. Brass on all sides of mould frame which  is rather heavy. The deckle is very light. Presumed for Finants Ministeriet, Denmark and made there?  For Finants Ministeriet see  http://www.fm.dk/  2 pieces of wove cover 10 x 10 mm  have been cut out to make mould unusable (security). The main supplier for security papers in Denmark was the Silkeborg Paper Mill. Although the mill closed commercially in 2000, there is a handpaper paper museum in the restored buildings which also include a hotel and shops - see http://arkiv.silkeborgbibliotekerne.dk/om-silkeborg/papermill/

I have just updated the catalogue. This reflects three pairs of moulds having been sold recently and the addition of various new items of information. Please discard any other versions that you have on file.

Download Mould catalogue - published 14 October 2011