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PAPERMAKING IN LINCOLNSHIRE: 1600-1900: Nott, Hugh.

1. Review by Ray Carroll, Lincolnshire Past & Present, 2008

This is a first-class piece of research. It has taken the author many years of digging in archives, touring the various sites where papermaking took place, studying old maps and delving into family histories.

The standard histories of papermaking spread a wide net over the early origins of the creation of material suitable to take pen and ink and, much later, type and illustrations. Such volumes take a world view that ranges from the Egyptian papyrus and Chinese use of bamboo to the first European factory in Italy in the thirteenth century and the first in England (Hertfordshire, 1495). Such matters are touched on here by way of introduction but the focus is strongly on the local. A long-term resident in Tealby, the author became interested in the village’s paper-making facilities sited on the stream by Papermill Lane. Being in a hilly area with ample supplies of clear running water and access to rags from which handmade paper was made, it became a centre that eventually had three mills in operation. Mr Nott first looks at these mills and has dug out many fascinating details of their origins, working methods and the families associated with them, the latter having a long section of their own.

He then provides similar details of the sites and associated families in Leasingham, West Deeping, Barrow-on-Humber, Louth and Houghton Mill, near Grantham. The earliest reference is to ‘a paperman’ living at Evedon, near Sleaford, in 1617. Each chapter also has its complement of site maps, photographs of any remains, old engravings, documents and family portraits. Well produced on good paper, another facet of the county’s industrial history is admirably covered.

2. Review by David Robinson, Lincolnshire Life, 2008

The earliest record of a paper mill in Lincolnshire was at Leasingham in 1617. The main requirement was a river with enough energy to power a watermill to pulp rags that were the papermakers' raw material. This book incorporates new research identifying seven other sites - three at Tealby (where the author lives and his interest started), and at Louth, Houghton in Grantham, Barrow on Humber and West Deeping. He visited each to trace what remains of the mills and drying sheds; some have completely disappeared but mill buildings remain at Louth and West Deeping.

There is information on the people who worked the low-tech hand-made paper producing mills and how the busineses were run. Even watermarks have been found, which show that good quality white paper was made for printing and writing. Today we take paper for granted but in the seventeenth century it was a rare and expensive commodity.

A section describes the method of papermaking, first developed in China nearly two thousand years ago, and another on the working of the paper mill. Evidence for those in Lincolnshire includes documents from archives not previously published, site plans, watermarks and photographs to demonstrate the extent of the industry in the county. From the 1830s competition from mechanised steam-powered mills elsewhere overwhelmed local producers, some of which converted to corn mills, and the last paper mill to close was at Houghton in 1890.