Thursday, September 03, 2009

An old printshop

During our brief travels this summer, we visited Sherbrooke Village which is an historic village, and it has a printery. I had visited this village when I was a kid, but I did not remember there being a printshop. This time, however, it was the most interesting shop in town (although a bindery would have been even better).

Sherbrooke Village is just a regular town really, and in the 1960s the town decided to turn itself into a museum. So all the historic homes and shops were restored to their 1800s state. And although it's primarily a tourist attraction, some of the buildings like the church and courthouse, which are part of the historic village, are also still used by the larger community of Sherbrooke. There is a simple wooden fence around the historic village and on the other side of the fence within arm's reach, is the modern town of Sherbrooke with exhaust fumes and ATMs and all that good stuff. So it is an interesting juxtaposition.

They have all the things you would expect to find in an historic village like a blacksmith, a schoolhouse, a post office, a jail, the doctor's home and office, a pharmacy, the potter's barn, etc. But as I said, the printshop was a little highlight so I thought I'd share some of the photos that I took.


Chandler and Price in action

Many drawers of type

My kid, who might have mixed up some type, but I'm not admitting anything...

4 comments:

Elspeth said...

Really neat post! I always wanted to visit Sherbrooke Village. The print shop looks very much like NSCAD's printshop, with all the old printing presses and cabinets full of type. Although in Sherbrooke it is probably in a more authentic setting... :)

Carol said...

What a wonderful place to visit! Of course your kid didn't mix up the type! As if...

MyHandboundBooks said...

thanks elspeth. the equipment is a lot like the stuff at the Dawson Printshop at NSCAD. The Chandler and Price is probably the same, i think. But NSCAD really has tonnes more type (literally) than this little printery.

Hehehe, yes that's my story Carol, and I'm sticking to it :)

Merry said...

What a terrific place...can't believe how neat it all is.