The Print Workshop provides a display of printing machinery and artefacts.
Of considerable interest to our visitors, most of the Print Workshop's exhibits are operational and in use throughout the season.


About the Printed Word...


The machinery includes a Columbian "Eagle" flat-bed press (c.1856), which in some respects is not far removed from the wooden presses of Gutenberg & Caxton.

There is a variety of treadle and hand-operated presses and an early Auto-Victoria platen. A "star wheel" Intaglio press (with sunken surfaces) is used on occasion to print from engraved copper plates. A pneumatically fed "Heidelberg Cylinder" press is of more recent vintage. Linotype and Ludlow "hot metal" machines produce the type used in presses, and the collection includes a complete Monotype keyboard and caster.

Other additions include an Albion lever press made by Harrild & Sons, which was used for proofing purposes at the offices of the Daily & Sunday Express from the early 1900s to 1975, whilst work is also underway to house a replica of the Ben Franklin Common Press, a predominantly timber press used in the 17th century, and recently built by the Museum's skilled Wheelwrights.