Workshop &
Poole Printmakers
5 Bowling Green Alley
Poole, Dorset, England, BH15 1AG
Workshop
The Small Hopkinson Albion Press
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A press mainly used for printing small flyers, posters and books.
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This press came to us with cases of moveable letter type for eight fonts, compositing sticks, chases and all the necessary equipment to prepare pages up to 300 x 250mm for letter press printing. This technology goes back to the beginnings of movable type printing in the 15th Century
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Movable type printing allowed much more flexibility than the earlier block printing as the same type could be rearranged for each succesive document. This then made the printing of books and more complex documentation a viable project. To achieve such a printing project the earliest print workshops of this period would have combined the essential skills of type founding, compositing the type, inking the type and applying the paper page to the inked type with the press.
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The earliest letter presses were based on the linen press with which a central screw applied pressure to a platen. Later these were replaced by the Dutch press in the 1700s
