Prior to its closure in December 2015, Wansbrough Mill had been the lifeblood of employment in Watchet for over 250 years. Its presence in the town helped to define the identity of a place in which people have always made and created. Unlike most coastal towns this has given Watchet a character that differs to its seaside neighbours—as a hardworking town with a busy trade in the making of paper, which, alongside its working docks, cemented the town as a manufacturing rather than a seaside or fishing place.

On news of its closure, Contains Art established a project to preserve, disseminate and celebrate the story of the Mill. The project explored the impact of the Mill on the social and industrial history of the town from a number of perspectives: combining artistic responses with archival approaches to capture personal memories, papermaking processes, industrial landscape and  documentary materials, finding new ways for the public to engage, interact and understand the legacy of papermaking in Watchet.

The team behind the Wansbrough heritage project would like to thank everyone who has contributed their time, energy, materials and memories to making this project come to life. More than 100 people were involved in some way, from sharing their stories as part of the oral histories collection, which can be heard at the Market House Museum, to spending hours in the Mill working through the archive, to making exhibition stands and teaching children to make paper by hand.

It was an extraordinary, humbling and eye-opening experience and has only reinforced our sense of how important the Mill has been to Watchet’s identity, both past and present.

We are hugely grateful to everyone, including all our funders and supporters, but mostly to the men and women who make up the Wansbrough ‘family’, and whose generosity and spirit continues to be felt throughout the town, despite the sad closure of the Mill.

In 2021, with the opening of East Quay, papermaking has returned to Watchet. Two Rivers Paper [link], which was established by Jim Patterson, who learnt is trade at Wansbrough Mill, has a purpose-built papermill in the development, from which the finest of handmade papers is produced. Visitors can watch the process of papermaking from a viewing gallery at East Quay and learn about its history from the displays available.

As part of the project a virtual paper mill was created online so that people can visit the mill as it once was. This virtual tour captures the Mill as it was in 2015, weeks before its closure. You can use the aerial map to find your location in the Mill, or navigate through each room by following the animated hotspots. Each location is named by the machinery or processes that took place inside, as they were known to the workers of the Mill.

The tour can be viewed via our archived website on desktop, mobile, tablet or virtual reality headsets. Either move your cursor through the environment, or move your handheld device in relation to the surroundings (look for the glasses icon in the QTVR menu to set up VR headsets).

Within these locations are links to creative or archival content that were made about, or are related, to the Mill itself. Look for icons throughout the Mill, you will find films, music, photographs, poems and artwork. From it, you can explore the industrial heritage of Wansbrough Mill and interact with the legacy of paper making in Watchet.

A number of artists worked on the project, including Dot Kuzniar and Kalina Newman, whose short films are available below. All content can be accessed from the QTVR tour.

Too many people to mention them all by name have contributed to the many strands of work that have made up the Wansbrough project.

Many have also made important contributions, from Chris Northam, who helped with everything - a fountain of knowledge and heart of gold - to Stephen Bond who shared his 20 + years of heritage expertise to Hazel Barron whose grandfather worked at the Mill and who, along with Kalina Newman, researched and wrote important contributions to the heritage booklet, to all the volunteers from Mary to Loretta to Ann to Mel to Bernie to Ian and a hundred others. We are hugely grateful for all your efforts to keep the memories of Wansbrough alive in Watchet.

Thanks to work of artists who contributed to the content in the QTVR; John Leahy, Alison Jacobs, Kalina Newman, Bill van den Ijssel, Theatre Mélange, Ian Shaw, Joel Tait, Rosie-May Giblett, Tim Richmond, Elizabeth Roberts, Andy Davey, David Ridge, Bob Cramp, Dot Kuzniar, Glyn Jarrett and Jason Robinson.