This is a large paper mill in Scotland, which I visited with Pincheck and Cuban. It was on my list for quite a while, during which time I scratched around for information and gradually figured out its secrets. We spent the best part of a day wandering its sheds and towers, then just after exploring the final building we had to make a rapid exit …
Until the turn of the 21st century, Scotland had an extensive papermaking industry. Paper of every type was manufactured – cartridge, writing, printing, coated, artboard, kraft paper – using many different raw materials, including esparto grass, softwood, hardwood and flax. The concentration of mills in one part of Scotland is next in scale only to those of Lancashire, and in the south-east of England. Fortunately, some of these giant mills, like Tullis Russell at Markinch and Curtis Papers at Guardbridge are still working. This is one which isn’t.
A small papermill first opened here in 1788, in a deep wooded ravine at the side of a fast-flowing river. It was built by the local laird for £500, and consisted of one vat which produced paper from cotton and linen rags. Compared to today’s industrial-scale paper manufacture, its output of a few tons each year was minisule. Over the years it was leased to a series of papermakers, and by 1818, a second mill had been built quarter of a mile upstream, sharing a common mill lade, and it manufactured paperboard from old tarred rope. As paper-making technology was born in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, new machines were invented and installed in the mills: the paperboard mill was producing 20 tons each week, a mix of board, cartridge and coloured papers. Five “Hollander” beaters were installed in the earlier papermill in the 1820’s: they were a large investment, so they were kept running day and night, producing pulp to feed the process – each beater needed around 40hp, which was provided by the mill’s steam engine.
The biggest draw on capital for the papermakers, though, was the “Fourdrinier” paper-making machine which the mill installed to complement their beaters. The Fourdrinier used an endless loop of woven wirecloth onto which the saturated paper pulp was sprayed – further down the machine, the wire was given a shake and most of the water drained through it. Next the “water leaf” of pulp passed onto a continuous “couch” of felt, on which it passed over a series of steam-heated drying cylinders. Watermarks were impressed into the paper using dandy rolls, and when the paper emerged at the dry end of the machine, it was ready to be cut. The Fourdrinier was invented in France in 1799, and first installed at Hemel Hempsted in 1803, closely followed by a machine at Culter Mills in Aberdeen. The earliest machines produced a web of paper 24 inches wide, which was gradually increased to 48 inches, until a revolutionary 80 inch high speed machine was displayed at the 1862 London International Exhibition. It was constructed by a famous Edinburgh paper engineering company … and so I can carry on telling the story of Bertrams, who I mentioned in my report on Fletchers’ Mill at Oldham.
When they left school the Bertram brothers, George and William, worked with their father at Springfield Mill at Polton on the North Esk near Edinburgh. William was then apprenticed to an engineering works, while George became a papermaker at another of the mills on the Esk in 1837. As far as I know, although it once supported nine or ten, there are no mills left in the Esk Valley today …
George and William then joined together to build paper machines at St Catherine’s Works in Sciennes, Edinburgh. Their younger brother, James, started his own paper engineering company in 1845, building a works in Leith Walk. Together, the Bertram comapnies became world leaders in paper machinery, building a vast range of machines that included stuff catchers, paper cutters, beating engines, boilers, papermaking machines – and particularly relevant to this mill, conical esparto willows and patent esparto dusters. In contrast to Fletchers, which used flax and hemp as raw materials for thin ‘baccy paper, this mill originally used esparto grass to make a thick paperboard. The grass was imported from Spain and Tunisia and put through a machine called a willow to beat out the dust, then fed into digestors where a mix of lime and soda was added, then boiled for five hours. The caustic residue of “black liquor” was drained into storage tanks for later treatment; and the esparto was taken from the digestor to be washed and beaten in a “potcher”, which removed the soda and any residue of organic material. The pulp was then rinsed in a sodium carbonate solution, or bleached … then it was ready for the papermaking machine.
Until the turn of the 21st century, Scotland had an extensive papermaking industry. Paper of every type was manufactured – cartridge, writing, printing, coated, artboard, kraft paper – using many different raw materials, including esparto grass, softwood, hardwood and flax. The concentration of mills in one part of Scotland is next in scale only to those of Lancashire, and in the south-east of England. Fortunately, some of these giant mills, like Tullis Russell at Markinch and Curtis Papers at Guardbridge are still working. This is one which isn’t.
A small papermill first opened here in 1788, in a deep wooded ravine at the side of a fast-flowing river. It was built by the local laird for £500, and consisted of one vat which produced paper from cotton and linen rags. Compared to today’s industrial-scale paper manufacture, its output of a few tons each year was minisule. Over the years it was leased to a series of papermakers, and by 1818, a second mill had been built quarter of a mile upstream, sharing a common mill lade, and it manufactured paperboard from old tarred rope. As paper-making technology was born in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, new machines were invented and installed in the mills: the paperboard mill was producing 20 tons each week, a mix of board, cartridge and coloured papers. Five “Hollander” beaters were installed in the earlier papermill in the 1820’s: they were a large investment, so they were kept running day and night, producing pulp to feed the process – each beater needed around 40hp, which was provided by the mill’s steam engine.
The biggest draw on capital for the papermakers, though, was the “Fourdrinier” paper-making machine which the mill installed to complement their beaters. The Fourdrinier used an endless loop of woven wirecloth onto which the saturated paper pulp was sprayed – further down the machine, the wire was given a shake and most of the water drained through it. Next the “water leaf” of pulp passed onto a continuous “couch” of felt, on which it passed over a series of steam-heated drying cylinders. Watermarks were impressed into the paper using dandy rolls, and when the paper emerged at the dry end of the machine, it was ready to be cut. The Fourdrinier was invented in France in 1799, and first installed at Hemel Hempsted in 1803, closely followed by a machine at Culter Mills in Aberdeen. The earliest machines produced a web of paper 24 inches wide, which was gradually increased to 48 inches, until a revolutionary 80 inch high speed machine was displayed at the 1862 London International Exhibition. It was constructed by a famous Edinburgh paper engineering company … and so I can carry on telling the story of Bertrams, who I mentioned in my report on Fletchers’ Mill at Oldham.
When they left school the Bertram brothers, George and William, worked with their father at Springfield Mill at Polton on the North Esk near Edinburgh. William was then apprenticed to an engineering works, while George became a papermaker at another of the mills on the Esk in 1837. As far as I know, although it once supported nine or ten, there are no mills left in the Esk Valley today …
George and William then joined together to build paper machines at St Catherine’s Works in Sciennes, Edinburgh. Their younger brother, James, started his own paper engineering company in 1845, building a works in Leith Walk. Together, the Bertram comapnies became world leaders in paper machinery, building a vast range of machines that included stuff catchers, paper cutters, beating engines, boilers, papermaking machines – and particularly relevant to this mill, conical esparto willows and patent esparto dusters. In contrast to Fletchers, which used flax and hemp as raw materials for thin ‘baccy paper, this mill originally used esparto grass to make a thick paperboard. The grass was imported from Spain and Tunisia and put through a machine called a willow to beat out the dust, then fed into digestors where a mix of lime and soda was added, then boiled for five hours. The caustic residue of “black liquor” was drained into storage tanks for later treatment; and the esparto was taken from the digestor to be washed and beaten in a “potcher”, which removed the soda and any residue of organic material. The pulp was then rinsed in a sodium carbonate solution, or bleached … then it was ready for the papermaking machine.
