Place Name
Industrial heritage. A mill is said to have stood on the spot from 1782, when George Ansell, a stationer who owned the nearby paper mill bought buildings from the trustees of big local landowner James Scawen. Despite its name Vellum Mill didn’t start out making vellum, it was a snuff mill for much of its early years. Snuff, a smokeless tobacco made from finely ground tobacco leaves which were snorted up a nostril giving a quick hit, was very popular among high society in the 18thCentury. The snuff mill, run by Madder & Snuff Manufacturer, continued for many years. But sometime around 1918, John Boughton, a parchment manufacturer took over the mill and converted its usage into a vellum parchment and drum skin manufacturer. By the 1960s the building was occupied by various light engineering companies until the 1980s when STR Design & Print took ownership of the building.
