About the press
The printer
The Crail Press can be found (somewhat unsurprisingly) in the coastal village of Crail in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. It is run by Dawn Hollis, sometime academic historian, oftentime harried mother, and the rest of the time inky-fingered printer.
The method
The Press follows traditional letterpress printing methods. This means that everything the press produces is created using a combination of movable metal type and illustrative blocks (a mixture of vintage and in-house designs) which are then printed on hand-operated presses.
The presses
The workhorses of the Crail Press are a two-hundred year-old Stanhope Press and a more modern Adana 8 x 5. The Stanhope was revolutionary when it was first designed for being the very first printing press to be made from iron rather than wood.