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Arborfield Mill or Helpston Paper Mill started up in the 1850s. It lay in a triangle closely bounded by the railway and the road to Stamford.

Originally the owners used twitch or couch grass to make paper but this proved unsuitable. Paper making continued on this site until the 1980s under a variety of owners. By the time I moved to the area the Mill had become derelict.

I had been buying paper from the Mill for years and continued to visit Budget paper Supplies, which operates from the same site. It was on one of my visits to BPS that I photographed the then distressed Mill that inspired these prints.

The Arborfield suite continues my interest and use of Victorian industrial buildings and machinery in printmakinh]g. The four chosen images are printed in colours that echo the sepia toning and cyanotype print styles of late Victorian and Edwardian photography.

In addition there is a much larger print titled “ Torn Edges”, Edition of 6 on Madrid Litho 350gsm Paper


The prints are made in small irregular editions at Pingle Print Studio in Northborough, Peterborough.