The Winterbourne Press
Origins
The Winterbourne Press is a working printing press based at Winterbourne House and Garden in Edgbaston, Birmingham. It came into existence in 2012, when Winterbourne salvaged some nineteenth-century printing presses which were at risk of being scrapped.
Our earliest machine, an 1837 Sherwin & Cope Imperial, once belonged to the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. In the 1970s it became part of the Flat Earth Press, which was set up and run by a University of Birmingham lecturer, Tom Davis, and his students. The aim of the Flat Earth Press was primarily educational but it also became a working press, taking on commissions. When the Flat Earth Press ceased to exist, the machines it had acquired fell into disuse. In 2012, they were rediscovered in a basement at Westmere House, a nearby property which, like Winterbourne, had become part of the University of Birmingham. Westmere was being refurbished, and the printing presses had to go.
Rather than see these historic machines broken up and scrapped, Lee Hale, the Director of Winterbourne, salvaged them and restored them with the help of volunteers. Space was identified for the presses in the former garage at Winterbourne, where the last private resident, John Nicolson, used to keep his Rolls Royce in the 1930s and 1940s, and where, more recently, a lawn mower and tractor had been housed. From this serendipitous beginning, the Winterbourne Press was born, and it has developed organically ever since.
A volunteer team began to coalesce, and type (both metal and wood), and other printing equipment trickled in from individuals and businesses who welcomed the chance to donate material rather than discard it. From the very start, the press became an opportunity to pass on skills, engage visitors, and generate income by hand printing items for retail in the Winterbourne gift shop.
Winterbourne House and Garden has become known for its entrepreneurial style; it is not risk-averse, and will throw caution to the winds when an exciting opportunity presents itself. This ‘can-do’ attitude has facilitated the expansion of Winterbourne’s collection of presses, even when new acquisitions presented logistical challenges. For example, the acquisition in 2019 of a 1968 Heidelberg press and a 1960s Intertype hot-metal typesetting machine necessitated the widening of a doorway to enable these massive objects to be accommodated.
