It is been a while since I’ve heard about the annual Whittington Press Open Day, the event I absolutely wanted to visit but never had a chance to. So when Patrick Goossens from Letter-kunde Press (BE) kindly offered me a ride I said 'Great! I'm in!'. We've had an ambitious plan to drive back and forth in one day. Armed with coffee and tasty pastry kindly provided by Patrick we started our journey somewhere around 5 o'clock in the morning in Antwerp and drove to Calais to take the train to Folkestone. After a quick train ride and almost 3 hours drive through the British countryside we arrived in Whittington just on time, when the participants were unloading their books, prints and setting up the tables in front the gardener’s cottage of Whittington Court where Whittington Press has its residency.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with their story and works like Matrix publication (‘by far the finest periodical of the book arts of the twentieth century’…), but for those of you are not (yet) familiar with Whittington Press I'll make a short intro.

The Whittington Press was started by John & Rosalind Randle in 1971 in the Gloucestershire village of Whittington. Partly as the wish to escape from London publishing jobs at the weekend and party as the result of enthusiasm for Caslon type, Albion presses and handmade paper. It became a fulltime activity in 1974. It is a publishing house that happens to do not only do its own printing but also casting type on Monotype casters and keeps a lot of people - printers, typesetters, binders, collectors, illustrators, authors, booksellers, proof-readers, and the postman - amused along the way. The Press stayed faithful to its initial instinct of printing new books from lead type, often illustrated with wood engravings, etching or linocuts.

In the same premises, their son Patrick operates his Nomad Letterpress, a quite separate and on the whole more creative undertaking that has had the benefit of attracting a younger generation to the Press. Double Dagger, designed with Nick Loaring/ The Print Project and printed on Heidelberg, now has the times circulation of Matrix.

The Press holds an annual open day at Whittington on the afternoon of the first Saturday of each September, were several other printers, booksellers, engravers and others are also invited to exhibit their works.

This year the Press' open day was on Saturday 7th September, from 2 p.m., coinciding as usual with the Whittington Summer Show. Printing on the table-top Albion and the proof presses, casting type on one of the 5 Monotype casters, nearly 40 tables outside including printers, binders, booksellers, typefounders, press-maker and marbler. To commemorate this day, Nick Gill from Effra Press & Typefoundry had struck a special matrix and 36-point sorts were available. And of course the Gloucestershire Constabulary Band, tea and cakes and see round the treasures of Whittington Court behind the Press.

The Press had just published Vance Gerry and the Weather Bird Press, published in three editions and Matrix 36 was set, proofed and was on the press (btw, it will be published in Spring 2020). I was so happy catching up with friends and fellow printmakers whom I see once a year in Milan during the Letterpress Workers or who occasionally visit my modest workshop Letterpress Corner in Ghent.

The Whittington Press have been printing books of the exquisite quality and casting its own type as one of only a handful of Monotype shops still working, with one of the largest collections of matrices and that is what makes it unique.

Yes, it was absolutely worth getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning and driving the whole day! Thank you, Patrick, for taking me on board!

more pictures here

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