UK Mill Visit

Last Friday, I was fortunate enough to visit James Cropper, one of the last remaining fine paper mills in the UK. Located in the village of Burneside, on the outskirts of Kendal, they are situated in the Lake District, an area of outstanding natural beauty and one of our great national parks. James Cropper was established in 1845 and although now a PLC, the Chairman of the company is the sixth generation of the family to lead the company. 

This amazing mill has a combination of beautiful old stone buildings which have been combined with modern buildings and machinery. Unfortunately the weather on Friday was a bit grim, so the mill probably doesn't look it's best in these pictures!

The mill has four paper machines and is one of the world's leading coloured and textured paper producers. This is pretty impressive given that the UK paper industry, which at one time was a world leader, hardly exists nowadays - a very sad situation. Croppers are also staying ahead of the competition with their subsidiary Technical Fibre Products (TFP) which manufactures high specification non-woven products which have a specialist uses including aerospace and motorsport.

Here are a couple of pictures inside the mill, showing of one of the paper machines in production.  

Croppers manufacture paper for many companies both in the UK and around the world. They also manufacture directly for some of the fashion brands and high quality packaging markets. Most importantly, they have an increasingly wide range of mill branded products including Vanguard, Croxley Heritage, Porcelain, the new Carvetian Suede and many, many more...

My thanks to our hosts, Rob Tilsley, Tim Tidman and Chris Brown. We had a great insight to the mill's capabilities and look forward to supporting this British manufacturer wherever and whenever possible.

http://www.cropper.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.02.2016