Best of British

The art of restoring ancient books

AS A TEENAGER, Trevor Lloyd was interested in craft and planned to train as a woodworker – but then he took a course in bookbinding. ‘I knew instantly that this was what I was going to do,’ he says.

He began working for a bookbinder in York who taught him the basics, then moved to London to join Sangorski & Sutcliffe, which first opened in 1901. After fine-tuning his craft, Lloyd decided to start his own business, and now, 30 years later, he employs three binders, restoring up to 400 books a year from a workshop in the Shropshire town of Ludlow. Two years ago, he was awarded an MBE for his services to bookbinding.

Recently, he completed a 10-year project, recreating books that had been destroyed during the Irish Civil War in 1922, and one of his favourite undertakings has been the restoration of several iconic 18th- century travel volumes, Cook’s Voyages. ‘ They ’re very beautifully illustrated – every collector wants a set,’ says Lloyd. Yet these books are relatively modern compared to much of his work. ‘We deal with a lot of incunabula, which are books printed before 1501,’ he explains.

To restore a book, Lloyd carefully unpicks the spine, removes the individual pages and washes them in a water and alcohol solution. ‘We try to retain as much of the original material as possible, but if any of the pages have been damaged, we’ll find matching old paper and repair it,’ he says. ‘I’ve been collecting paper for 40 years.’

When a page is missing, Lloyd creates a replica of it using his antique iron hand-printing press. Then, with a needle and bookbinder’s linen thread, he stitches the pages and spine together. ‘You can’t bind a book in a day. In some cases it has taken up to a month,’ he explains. (The time taken depends on the size and delicacy of the book.)

The leather bindings are all cut and dyed at his Ludlow workshop, and the title is added using gold leaf, imprinted on to the leather with a heated brass tool, and set with wax . The specific leather and lettering used is usually based on the bookbinding trend of the era the book was published. ‘I’ve photographed thousands of books and made a note of the size and the date of the bindings,’ says Lloyd.

He adds, ‘It’s the quality of the feel of the bindings, the whole tactile experience – the content, the print – that makes me love it.’ trevorlloyd.co.uk

Interview by Jessica Carpani. Photographs by Lucy Harris Above Bookbinder Trevor Lloyd in his Ludlow studio.Right Gold leaf being imprinted on to a leather book jacket; pages are washed and hung to dry.