A Fourdrinier machine is not, in the ordinary sense of the word, beautiful. It is large, loud, wet, and temperamental. It consumes wood pulp at one end and produces paper at the other through a process that involves wire mesh, felt blankets, heated rollers, and a quantity of river water that would make a hydroelectric engineer envious.

The Ashwater Paper Works, on the riverbank at Millgate, has two of them. The older was installed in 1937 by Josiah Hartwell himself, the younger in 1953 by his son. Between them, they have produced an estimated 58,000 tonnes of paper over a combined 162 years of operation. The newsprint on which this newspaper is printed came off the 1953 machine last Thursday.

Both machines will fall silent in December, when the mill closes after 112 years of continuous production. Agnes Hartwell, the founder’s granddaughter, announced the closure in March. Imported paper is thirty per cent cheaper than anything the Millgate works can produce.

But the machines, it seems, are not without admirers.

Two formal inquiries have been received in the past fortnight. The first, from the Ashford Republic’s Ministry of Industrial Heritage, expresses interest in acquiring the 1937 machine for permanent display at the National Museum of Industry in Ashford City. The second, from a private collector in Verlaine whose name has not been disclosed, concerns both machines.

“They don’t want the machines,” said Roland Jessup, the mill’s foreman, who has worked at the Ashwater works for thirty-three years. “They want the story. A working Fourdrinier from 1937 is not something you find in a catalogue.”

Jessup, who started on the pulp floor at nineteen, has begun compiling maintenance histories for both machines — a task he describes as “writing their biographies.” He has identified seven major overhauls, fourteen bearing replacements, and one occasion in 1978 when the 1937 machine’s drive chain broke and his predecessor repaired it with a bicycle chain and a length of fencing wire.

“It ran for six weeks on that repair,” he said. “Nobody told Mr Hartwell.”

The mill’s 43 workers are entering the first phase of transition. The Docklands Workers’ Association, which approved a 14-million-florin transition fund in March, has opened applications for retraining grants and placement assistance. Eight workers have applied so far — four for retraining in electrical fitting (the tramway project will need cable workers), two for boatyard apprenticeships, and two for positions at the Edgeminster textile mills.

“The fund exists,” said Patrick Seldon of the DWA. “The applications are slower than I’d like, but they’re coming. The mill doesn’t close until December. People are thinking.”

Thirty-five workers have not yet applied. Jessup suspects many are waiting to see whether the machinery sale proceeds — a working mill, however improbable, being preferable to a museum exhibit.

Agnes Hartwell, 71, declined to comment on the inquiries but confirmed through her solicitor that no decision has been made. The mill’s annual output — 800 tonnes of newsprint, bond, and specialty paper — will need to be replaced by imports beginning in January 2027.

The Bobington Times has printed on Ashwater paper since 1923. The current contract runs through December.