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It is silent now,
the great rag boiler. The benches are empty where
the aproned girls chattered and giggled while
their nimble fingers shredded the bundles of rags,
cutting away buttons and hooks and lengths of
whalebone because only pure cotton or linen could
go into the boiler.
The wooden trucks
they called dollies, each of which bore its owner's
name - Mary, Vickie, Hannah - are quiet.
Perhaps the ghost
of one of those young girls still drifts through
this old female kingdom, recalling when the papermill
was a bustling clamour of voices and machines,
and 35,000 sheets of paper were turned out every
week.
At the turn of this
century Wookey Hole Mill was the largest rag-made
papermill in Europe. Yet perhaps that ghost takes
pleasure in watching the ancient craft still practised
in the mill today as it has been for centuries.
Only the rags have
gone: cotton now comes in bales straight from
the cottonfields of the United States. But the
same machinery and processes remain, and the skill
of the papermakers.
Nowadays the cotton
goes directly to the beaters to be crushed and
soaked in water, separating the fibres and turning
it into the sodden white porridge called "stuff".
Beating is a skilled process and affects the final
weight of the paper.
It is under the eye
of the Vatman, into whose great vat the stuff
eventually trickles. With his assistant, the Coucher,
he controls the whole process of which the vat
is the centre: there were once 14 vats in operation
at Wookey Hole papermill.
It is the Vatman
who judges the quality of the stuff, who dips
and shakes the mould on which it forms into paper.
The mould itself is a rectangular wooden frame
supporting a fine wire mesh of phosphor-bronze.
When tinned copper wire is sewn on to this mesh,
sometimes in extraordinarily intricate designs,
it produces the watermarks that can be works of
art.
The Coucher (from
the French coucher, to lie down) lays down each
sheet of paper from the mould on to a thick piece
of woollen felt. Two moulds are used together,
so that as one is empty it is exchanged for another.
Coucher and Vatman work in a steady, unhesitating
rhythm, with perfect precision of hand and eye.
Finally the paper
is dried on hessian sheets or ropes of cowhair
- jute would stain the absorbent sheets. It will
be pressed, then glazed or left alone, and it
will last for centuries.
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