facilities

Paint Rollers

Members have access to a wide range of well-maintained equipment.

We currently have:

  • a large Albion press for relief printing, woodcut, engraving and linocut
  • a roller press for etching and lithography
  • our Hopkinson letter press
  • several smaller relief presses
  • facilities for silkscreen printing
  • the means for safe and solar etching

A healthy stock of inks is available to use, with good work surfaces and drying racks. Selections of paper and other materials are also available for purchase. Open workshop sessions are available to members, or time in the workshop can be purchased though a voucher system. Scheduled introductory courses happen regularly, together with a variety of print courses which non-members are welcome to sign up to.


Hopkinson Large Press

Our Hopkinson Press

We have a beautiful example of an Albion model press, typically used by jobbing printers from around 1830 to 1930. Designed for printing relief letter press documents such as pamphlets, handbills and books, it could also produce posters. This press was built by the Hopkinson and Cope Foundry based in London, circa 1850s. It was a design with a patent number 3545 and a serial number 3101. The design is strongly influenced by the motifs popular in Victorian Gothic architecture in the 19th Century. The Poole Printmakers press has a bed size 740mm by 530mm making it one of the larger versions of the Albion and able to print images close to this size. The pressure is exerted by a wedge and lever mechanism and this can deliver strong loads.

We also have a smaller model of Hopkinson for printing sizes less than A4.