For those who don’t know, William Cowley’s is the last remaining vellum maker in the UK and the only one in the world to hand-finish the skins. They make  use of the skins left over from our meat consumption, so that almost none of the animal is wasted. That is an important fact; no animal is slaughtered for the production of vellum. It is a waste product that would otherwise go to land-fill.

Today, four botanical artists and a self-proclaimed bag-man visited Cowley’s. We were looked after royally. I think in fact that they will need a day to recover from our visit!