Printing at Northcliffe’s Lincoln site ended last week as the final copies rolled off the press. All future editions of the Lincolnshire Echo will be printed in Grimsby, as demand for more colour and faster production proved too much for the Brayford Wharf machinery. The paper looked back at the history of its press, which clanked away under the newspaper's city centre HQ for 25 years.

During the early 1980s, when Lincoln was in the throes of redeveloping its city centre shopping areas, the Lincolnshire Echo offices and pressroom were relocated from the old St Benedict's Square site to a brand new purpose-built building on Brayford Wharf East.

Printing technology was to move up a gear from an old Goss "hot metal" letterpress to a Baker Perkins Halley Aller web offset press. So with the new building in place, the press was installed by Baker Perkins of Peterborough onto a raised platform to accommodate new Hurst reel stands below.

The press was not brand new but was brought from Thompson's Newspapers of Reading, who also had one more identical press still in use. The press, when installed, consisted of six printing units, some of which have spot colour facility, and two Pegasus folders, which were more than capable of printing the broadsheet Echo of that time.

The staff and press operators soon realised there was a potential to use the full capability of the press to enter the very lucrative market of contract print. This was so successful that two more extra press units were brought from Slough and installed for extra capacity.

In 1988, the demand for full colour from customers was so great that another press was brought from Australia, and re-imported to add four printing units and a folder to print eight extra pages of full colour into the Echo and all the other products now being printed. This was so successful that other printers in the Northcliffe Group soon followed in the success of the Lincoln Press.

Sadly, it's time to say farewell to printing in Lincoln after 113 years due to the demand for more colour pages and faster printing speeds which the 42-year-old press is not capable of.

The time has come to produce the final edition of the Echo, to pay respect to the dedication of all staff (prepress, press, publishing department, maintenance and production management) who have always been relied on to produce the Echo on every working day for the past 23 years, bringing the latest news to readers across the county from Brayford Wharf East.