Peter Burford, Visitor Services Manager at Hemel Hempstead’s historic Frogmore Paper Mill, celebrates the introduction of the new ‘plastic’ five pound note with mixed feelings. “The introduction of the new plastic banknotes will bring to an end more than 1300 years of paper money, as well as seeing the end of the security strip, an idea first developed by our local Victorian industrialist John Dickinson. However, with all the old fivers being withdrawn from circulation, this will mean lots more shredded paper banknotes becoming available for us to include in our famous ‘sterling’ banknote inclusion paper – notepads of which the Bank of England stock in their shop.’
Visitors to The Paper Trail at Frogmore Paper Mill can also buy the notepads, and learn for themselves about the ancient art of papermaking.
Frogmore Paper Mill is the world’s oldest mechanised paper mill – the birthplace of paper’s industrial revolution. Today it is still a working paper mill producing around 100 tonnes of specialist grade paper every year on historic paper machines.
