As well as leatherwork inside of the house was devoted to bookmaking. The process was recreated using the original 170 year old presses (which were second hand when bought in France).

The type is set in blocks, and fixed on the press. Some of the pages were pre-cast. The type was rolled with ink, then pressed onto the paper. The ink of the day took 2 days to dry, so the process was slow – several double pages being printed on large sheets.

Pompallier wanted the books to be easily avaliable, so the practice of issuing books with folded edges to be cut by the reader was not used. The pages were pre-cut with a special plane, sewed together, and glued to the end-leathers (with glue made from hooves and horns).

Finally the back was glued on and the book pressed to finish it.

All of which took a considerable amount of labour and time. All done apparently by 3 men over the years, one of whom was the head printer – actually a teacher who had a cousin who was a printer and got appointed to the NZ job in France on the strength of that. And the fact that nobody else wanted it.

I found the patina on these old machines, and the beauty of the wooden implements
 fascinating.