British Letterpress

Author: benb

  • Spitalfields Life: At the Caslon Letter Foundry

    Spitalfields Life: At the Caslon Letter Foundry

    Anoth­er series of pic­tures of the Caslon Let­ter Foundry at 22/23 Chiswell St., Lon­don.  Caslon were tak­en over by Stephen­son, Blake around 1937.  Pic­tures from the St Bride Library via. the Gen­tle Author.

  • The Manchester Ballads and the Incline Press

    The Manchester Ballads and the Incline Press

    An inter­est­ing Radio 4 pro­gramme on the Man­ches­ter Bal­lads made all the more excit­ing through the appear­ance around the half-way point of an Arab Plat­en Press.  Of course, press­es don’t exist with­out print­ing works and peo­ple — pro­vid­ed by Gra­ham and Kathy at the Incline Press.

  • Fenner Paper: Poster: Caught by the River Teifei

    Fenner Paper: Poster: Caught by the River Teifei

    Justin from Fen­ner Paper blogs about more work from Mr. Nick Hand: a delight­ful poster for a fes­ti­val in Wales.

  • St Bride Library Closure: Update Roundup

    St Bride Library Closure: Update Roundup

    On 31 July I post­ed that the Library at St Bride’s was to close, but noth­ing had been pub­lished on the Foun­da­tion’s web­site.

    Around the same time Print­Week report­ed that the Library was being ​‘restruc­tured’.  The Asso­ci­a­tion of Euro­pean Muse­ums said –

    Giv­en the cli­mate of uncer­tain­ty which has sur­round­ed the future devel­op­ment of the St Bride Library in recent years, these announce­ments can only add to the anx­i­ety felt by the many schol­ars, typog­ra­phers and design­ers world­wide for whom St Bride’s is one of the fore­most inter­na­tion­al resources in the field.

    On 06 August the Foun­da­tion made a state­ment to clar­i­fy the posi­tion.  I’m rather selec­tive here in my quote, but I find this remark­able –

    Many of you will have heard wild sto­ries about the clo­sure of St Bride Library and the Work­shop. I am also aware that some peo­ple are under the impres­sion that the whole Foun­da­tion is clos­ing with­out fur­ther ado and that every­thing will be sold or giv­en away and that will be the end of the sto­ry.

    This is sim­ply not true.

    Dis­ap­point­ing­ly, the wildest sto­ry — that the library and work­shops will cease — is true.

  • Closure of St Bride Library

    Closure of St Bride Library

    Ter­ri­ble news this after­noon: after 123 years St Bride Library will close.  The web­site it not yet updat­ed, but this mes­sage was post­ed to the LETPRESS list today –

    St Bride Foun­da­tion Update

    We would like to bring to your atten­tion that due to fund­ing con­straints the Foun­da­tion regrets that it is no longer pos­si­ble to keep the print­ing work­shop and library open in the cur­rent for­mat.

    This has meant that the employ­ees work­ing in those depart­ments have had to be made redun­dant.

    St Bride Foun­da­tion remains com­mit­ted to the care and con­ser­va­tion of its col­lec­tions and con­ser­va­tion work will con­tin­ue.

    If you have made book­ings for vis­its to the library or print­ing work­shop we shall be con­tact­ing you in the near future.

    The ​‘Shepherd’s at St Bride’ cours­es and our series of lec­tures will remain unaf­fect­ed.

    All the oth­er activ­i­ties that take place with­in the Foun­da­tion, the Bridewell The­atre, the Bridewell Bar and venue hire all remain vibrant and ful­ly active, which includes our cur­rent exhi­bi­tion ​‘St Bride Unveiled’.

    For any fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact the Chief Exec­u­tive glyn@sbf.org.uk

  • A Brief Introduction to England’s Secret Printing Presses | Heritage Calling

    From the His­toric Eng­land blog, a Brief Intro­duc­tion to Eng­land’s Secret Print­ing Press­es.

    A Brief Intro­duc­tion to England’s Secret Print­ing Press­es
  • Arab Press Register

    Arab Press Register

    In the Sum­mer of 2013 I set up a form to col­lect details of Arabs press­es around the world.  There are 19 press­es reg­is­tered at the moment run­ning in age from about 1892 to 1907.

    If you run an Arab and are will­ing to share the details, please com­plete the Arab Reg­is­ter.  In the com­ing months, I’ll organ­ise a way of shar­ing the con­tact details of Arab users.

    Ben

  • Oxford Guild of Printers: Bursary

    Oxford Guild of Printers: Bursary

    A great offer from a great let­ter­press print­ing organ­i­sa­tion

  • St Bride Foundation: Wayzgoose Sunday 17 May

    St Bride Foundation: Wayzgoose Sunday 17 May

    The St. Bride Foun­da­tion will be hold­ing a Wayz­goose — a print­ers’ fair — this com­ing Sun­day 17 May between 11am and 4pm.  Details at their web­site!

    [googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1 m³!1d4966.100667204068!2d‑0.10542691534423829!3d51.51229256086154!2 m³!1f0!2f0!3f0!3 m²!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3 m³!1 m²!1s0x4876055c47318b3b%3A0x143cf4512f8f9f07!2sSt+Bride+Foundation!5e0!3 m²!1sen!2suk!4v1431625017273&w=600&h=450]

  • Print Project: Tickets

    Nick at the Print Project has pro­duced more bold work for the tick­ets for the Leeds Print Fes­ti­val