700-Year-Old French Mill Still Cranking Out Handmade Paper

For their latest video, Great Big Story visits a French mill that’s been making paper for 700 years. The Richard de Bas mill has supplied paper to the likes of Picasso and Dali and is today one of the few remaining places in France where paper is still made by hand; they only produce about 2 tons of paper a year. That flower paper is incredible. My only complaint about this video is that it wasn’t 6-7 minutes longer. You can see more of the mill in this video (in French, although YT’s auto-translated captions work ok).

The mill and the associated museum in Ambert, France are open to visitors and you can buy some of their paper from the online store. A pack of dozen sheets of their floral paper is €30.

See also this 1970 short film on marbled paper, a personal favorite of mine.

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