Features / Old City
Letterpress printers to come together for traditional wayzgoose
There’s a lot to learn when spending the morning at Bristol’s Letterpress Collective, hidden away down Leonard Lane in the Old City.
Ellen Bills, who is one of only two full-time members of staff here, says that she is still learning every day how to use some of the equipment here which is hundreds of years old.
Today’s jobs are first printing bookmarks for her colleague Nick Hand’s new book, followed by printing the labels for Wilding Cider (from former Birch restaurant owners Sam and Becky), which will be on sale for the first time at a special event on Saturday.
is needed now More than ever
That special event is a wayzgoose, a name since medieval times for a gathering of letterpress printers, which on Saturday, December 1 from 11am to 5pm will see the Letterpress Collective joined by nine other printers from across the UK to sell beautiful printed things, and cider.
“I like the slowness of it,” says 27-year-old Ellen, ensconced behind a Heilderberg Platen machine made in 1960. “You kind of get absorbed in it. It’s never boring.
“I love learning and here I’m constantly learning, even though I use the same press every day.”
Ellen joined Nick in the Letterpress Collective four years ago after graduating in graphic design from UWE and says that she thinks letterpress printing will be her career for life.
Over coffee at nearby Small Street Espresso (letterpress printing is thirsty work), Nick says that one of the best parts of his job is working with amazing people, such as Sam and Becky from Wilding Cider.
Some of the printers coming to Bristol on Saturday use 21st century technology such as 3D printing to make blocks for use in machines that are old enough to be in museums.
The Letterpress Collective has gathered together wood and lead type dating back several centuries as well as a collection of printing presses including the Heidelberg, which was winched out of the M Shed store by a dockside crane.
Nick sees the business as a chance to learn from the last of the printers and compositors in the city so that a new generation can understand and learn the thrill of working a small press and seeing your creation in ink on paper.
“I’m definitely addicted to printing,” Nick says. “I always have been.
Looking ahead to the wayzgoose, he laughs: “There’s a lot of drinking when letterpress printers come together. It’s a medieval thing.”
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