The mills which follow the course of the river Isle through France reveal the history of the paper industry in the Perigord region.

Of course the history of paper didn't begin on the shores of this French river. Paper didn't arrive in Europe until more than a thousand years after it was discovered by the Chinese.

The oldest mill is called "La Brugere" at Thiviers and dates from the XVI century. This first mill and those which developed thereafter are directly linked to the beginnings of Guyenne Paper.

Towards 1800, the Gaillard family were exploiting the mill Castilloux and soon after, bought the old La Brugere mill. In 1896, these mills were subsequently hired by the Grimaud family who became famous thanks to their production of playing cards which earned them a world wide reputation in casinos from Deauville to Las Vegas and Shanghai. After the death of Emile Gaillard in 1928, Henri de Roquemaurel his associate, managed the exploitation of the mills alone.

The Castilloux mill was given it's definitive title not long afterwards on March 6th 1943, it became known as Guyenne Paper Mill.

In the aftermath of war business was relaunched with a new orientation; the production of art paper and in 1965 Guyenne paper launched Cast Coated Paper for boxing, for which it became one of the European leaders. Originally called SUNIPAK, it is now known as SUNIBOX.

In 1995 an industrialist form Limoges, Fredric Procop was greatly impressed by this company and it's potential for evolution. Sufficiently impressed in fact for Guyenne Paper and The Procop Group to join forces, bringing together the roots of the paper business in the region.

Since then great investment has been made in the new company and the product range widened to include the production of fluorescent paper and more recently, Inkjet printing paper.

The Castilloux Mill