Suffolk man swaps brain science PhD for bookbinding

Hugo Stevensen, 32, who lives in Clopton, abandoned his budding scientific career after attending a bookbinding course at the Field Studies Council's Flatford Mill centre in Suffolk. 

The 32-year old started his PhD in Neuroscience in 2022 with a focus on studying the relationship between the brain and those living with ADHD.

Hugo Stevensen, founder of Aulwynd Bindery (Image: Amedeo Castellani)"As it was Covid, it wasn’t possible to bring in people to participate in experiments, so the project instead became computer science based, coding a model of the brain to compare to the philosophical theories," he said.

"My heart just wasn’t in sitting at a computer coding for four years."

The Clopton man then decided to leave his doctorate and turn his bookbinding hobby into a business, Aulwynd Bindery, using the the Anglo-Saxon word for craft.

Aulwynd Bindery produces journals and notebooks but also restores rare and antiquarian books (Image: Aulwynd Bindery) "I first started bookbinding during my second masters but I have collected rare and antiquarian books all my life. These books are expensive and old ones sometimes need repair. I started bookbinding as a way of learning how to repair my collection and rebind books I liked."

​Mr Stevensen attended a course organised by the Field Studies Council at its Flatford Mill centre in Suffolk, led by Mark Cockram, a bookbinder with more than 40 years experience.

"I would say that bookbinding is one of the most ancient heritage crafts and is very quickly dying out.

Mr Stevensen's hobby started with his love of rare and antiquarian books (Image: Aulwynd Bindery) "It is a joy to keep that tradition going and to be able to work on repairing and crafting beautiful things that will be treasured for generations."