‘The Hazel may be small, but it is the champion of the woods’: Sara Hudston on Hazel Press and Daphne Astor
Posted by Sara Hudston
To round off our month-long celebration of Daphne Astor and Hazel Press, Sara Hudston tells us more about the press’s ethos, grounded in environmentally responsible practices, and about Daphne, Hazel’s founder who sadly died earlier this year.
Hazel Press began as a kind of farm diversification project, with the aim to make books from plant-based materials without petrochemical products. It was – and still is – intent on publishing books that are not only made in environmentally responsible ways but are also beautifully designed and of literary merit. Covers are often commissioned; Maggi Hambling, Jason Hicklin and Anna Ilsley are among contributors. The cover of the latest title (and London Review Bookshop bestseller), Greencombe by Ella Duffy, uses details from a painting by the 1960s psychedelic artist and Devon farmer John Hurford.
The imprint was founded by Daphne Astor in 2020. Daphne was an artist, poet, photographer, publisher, naturalist and mentor – but if asked what she did, she invariably replied: ‘I’m a farmer.’ She worked alongside her husband Micky managing their farm in Cambridgeshire, one of the first to explore regenerative methods, prioritising soil health and ecological balance. When Hazel started, Daphne thought her commitment to eco-publishing was fairly mainstream. Printing everything in the UK on 100% recycled UK-produced paper using vegetable inks – surely that was commonplace? She was amazed to discover it was not. But she refused to compromise, and her imprint gained a reputation for being the most environmentally aware publisher in the country.
Daphne’s knowledge of poetry gave a strong focus to the list, but Hazel was always more than a poetry press. Nearly half the titles are prose-based, including writing by Alys Fowler, Julia Blackburn and Edmund de Waal. A short book format has proved ideal for mixing genres; myth, essays, poetry, eco-protest, psychogeography, journalling, photography, fiction and sexual politics have found places on our list.
It took time to source a printer aligned with her ethos. We tried several before finding Anglia Print in Suffolk, a family firm and certified B Corp, dedicated to social fairness and high environmental standards. Owner John Popely pioneered the use of vegetable inks for digital printing. All Hazel books are now Singer-sewn bound using Coats EcoVerde thread, made entirely from recycled plastic bottles. (Tests found that plant fibre threads were not strong enough to sew through paper and kept breaking). This eliminates the use of plastic-based glue and reaffirms our commitment to short books, since it’s not really feasible to Singer-sew more than 48 pages. We’re continually seeking ways to avoid using petrochemicals – the cover coating on Greencombe is made of potato starch, for example.
Daphne named Hazel Press after the tree – Corylus avellana – with its strongly rooted magical symbolism, poetic allusions and practical uses. When she learned in spring 2024 that she did not have long to live, she chose to hand the press to me on the understanding that it would continue in the same spirit. She liked to quote Max Adams, who wrote in The Wisdom of Trees: “The Hazel may be small, but it is the champion of the woods: the most useful of all trees… From it we learn that strength may come from small packages; that flexibility is a strength in itself, and that self-renewal is the art of survival.”
