Hemp-based paper

Fine handmade papers since Shakespeare's day

Wookey Hole is a small paper company in England. It has used hemp in their papers for a very long time. Shakespeare's folios were rumored to be written on their paper.

Hemp paper

	Name Hemp (Cannabis Sativa)
	Plant A woody herbaceous annual, planted in spring and harvested in the autumn. One acre of hemp yields four times as much papermaking fibre as one acre of trees.
	Fibre A 'bast' fibre obtained from the hemp stem in threadlike strands and fragments of dried stalk. The thickness and length of the fibre give an extremely strong and durable paper.
	Use Stems: paper for bank notes, cigarette paper, stationery. Seeds: oil for cooking, lubrication, fuel. Foliage: medicine to treat pain, stress, asthma, nausea, depression and poor appetite.
	History 2800 B.C.: Cultivated for fibre in Central Asia 1000 B.C.: The crop most widely grown by man 700 A.D.: One million paper prayers printed on Japanese hemp paper 1400+A.D.: Gutenberg Bible printed on hemp paper 1600+A.D.: King James Bible printed on hemp paper 1800+A.D.: Works of Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll printed on hemp paper
	Paper This handmade hemp paper was developed and produced at Wookey Hole Papermill, following a tradition of fine paper manufacture dating back to at least 1610. We are now proud to apply this age-old craft to the production of paper from hemp fibres grown in East Anglia under a recently obtained Home Office licence. Although one of the earliest papers made by man, hemp paper is ideally suited to take us into the 21st Century as it is an environmentally safe product.