Mediaeval Purple Ink (40 ml)

This ink is a unique blend of two inks that are made to mediaeval recipes, brazilwood red ink and oakgall ink made with wine. It is a beautifully rich red with a bluish tinge and if mixed with more oakgall ink it leans towards a blue purple. The colour goes down a bright red but as it oxidises over a course of a few minutes will settle more to a red-purple. This ink is lovingly handmade and comes in a 40 ml heavy bottomed quality glass bottle with cork and wax seal. The first colour swatch in the images is the ink itself with darker versions made from a few drops of oak gall ink added. It comes in a 40ml glass heavy bottom bottle with cork and wax seal.

HISTORICAL INKS Our inks are hand-made in England to 17th, 18th century and medieval recipes. Made in small batches and processed in Cambridgeshire and London, they contain locally sourced natural and organic materials. Each ink recipe has been meticulously researched from primary and secondary resources and the resulting ink is a culmination of many hours of experimenting and fine tuning. Many ancient weights and measures do not have corresponding modern equivalents so often scholarly articles are utilised to ascertain these vernacular quantities to the highest accuracy possible.

BRITISH CRAFT TRADITION This collection of inks is a unique offering of time-honoured tradition from British history. Each ink is a true historical recipe faithfully recreated and in some was resurrected, using traditional methods and materials. Colours from bygone eras are once more revealed.

INDUSTRIAL INK PRODUCTION Modern inks typically use synthetically produced chemicals that can sometimes be toxic, often harmful for the user and the environment. Artificial colour enhancers once added, can shorten the life of the ink both in storage and on paper. Our inks use naturally occurring organic ingredients. Tannic acid in oak galls give the ink its intense dark colour, and in commercial inks this is synthetically made in industrial quantities. It would be very hard to find enough oak galls to cater for such vast amounts of ink. In contrast we champion the specificity of the origins of the ingredients for our inks.

NATURAL INK MAKING PROCESS Natural variations in raw materials due to seasonal changes do attribute to slight colour variations. Therefore, different batches of ink are blended to allow for consistency. These seasonal variations that create colour nuances add a sense of the rarefied experience and allow artists to appreciate singular moments in time. This ‘slow craft tradition’ is important in continuing Britain’s unique cultural traditions.