Letterpress

The St Botolph’s Letterpress project was established in January 2014, with the aim of creating a community access letterpress studio in Colchester. Beginning with a donated Cropper & Charlton ‘Acme’ press, the early stages of the project involved cleaning, sorting and restoring the various elements of this disused jobbing print studio, which had been neglected for 30-odd years.

A regular programme of talks, events, exhibitions and film screenings has enabled the project to grow, creating links with local experts and enthusiasts, who have been willing to donate their time, expertise, and essential equipment to help us on our way.

The first phase of the project is drawing to close, and very soon we’ll be starting on the fun stuff – printing. Visitors, volunteers and enquiries are always welcome. If you’d like to give us a hand, or just want to find out more, please email [email protected]

NEXT EVENT – 24th November

For our final guest speaker in 2014 we’re keeping it local with Mr Alan Brignull of the Hedgehog Press in Wivenhoe. He’ll be giving us a look at the world of the hobby printer, through old journals, annuals, snatches of historical fact and perhaps even the odd apocryphal tale. More details here.

Type Cleaning Club – Wednesdays

We’re getting closer to our goal of cleaning and sorting through all our typecases. Most of the big sizes are done, so now we’re getting a team of regular volunteers who are brave enough to tackle the smaller, harder to identify fonts. If you feel like helping out, come down to the Waiting Room every Wednesday in October, around 7.30pm, and get stuck in!

Monthly Newsletter

After 6 months, we’ve finally got around to setting up our dedicated letterpress mailing list. Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter and keep up-to-date with our future events, talks, workshops and other items of interest. Just click here and fill in your details.