Wansbrough Paper Mill
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| Built | Developed from 1587 Paper mill from 1652 |
|---|---|
| Location | Watchet, Somerset, England |
| Coordinates | 51°10′48″N 3°20′11″W / 51.180121°N 3.336321°WCoordinates: 51°10′48″N 3°20′11″W / 51.180121°N 3.336321°W |
| Industry | Paper mill |
| Products |
Coreboard (UK's largest manufacturer) testliner recycled envelope, bag and kraft papers. plasterboard liner |
| Employees | 174 |
| Defunct | December 2015 |
Wansbrough Paper Mill was a paper mill located in the town of Watchet, Somerset, when it was the UK's largest manufacturer of coreboard.
Watchet, then a relatively isolated farming community with a major port on the Bristol Channel since Roman times, had a population with a need for income over the winter months. With access to ample supplies of wood in the , the earliest records of paper making in the community date back to 1652.
In the 15th century, a flour mill had been established in the town near the mouth of the Washford River, by the Fulford and Hadley families. Taken over by Sir John Wyndham in 1616, he was keen to develop further milling facilities on his lands in the town. By 1587 the Wyndham estate had established a fulling and grist mill to the south west, on a farm called Snailholt (the site of today's paper mill factory), which was leased to Silvester Bickham. By 1652, the mill had started to produce some paper, which had been sold to John Saffyn of Cullompton, Devon.
By 1727 the tenant of the mill was John Wood, the first of four generations of that family to work the mill until 1834. His son William Wood developed the first paper mill factory on the site from the 1750s. Converting an old apple-fruit press originally used for making cider, paper was initially produced by hand using the locally developed St Decumans process which utilisd a vat, to produce one cart of paper product per week.
In 1846 business partners James Date, William Peach and John Wansbrough bought the business from Wood's estate, and introduced mechanised-production via a water wheel powered pulley system. But from the 1860s, the factory started the process of converting to steam power. As the installed Lancashire boilers had initial draughting problems being located in a shelter valley, in 1865 a square-shaped chimney was built of local red bricks from Wellington Brickworks. Its four-sections were each marked by a double-course of buff brick from Ebbw Vale, and further bound by iron-bands. Originally 75 feet (23 m) in height, two further sections were added totalling 15 feet (4.6 m) to provide additional up-draught. The chimney survived until 2011, when it was replaced by a new stainless-steel structure and demolished.
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