England was never really a printing center. This is not to say that a print center did not exist in London, or that print production did not rapidly overtake manuscripts from the late 15th c. on, as it did elsewhere in Europe. However, compared to Germany, France, and Italy. For example, for the period from 1450-1600, 75,500 titles were printed in France, 88,000 in Italy, and 94,000 in Germany. For the same period, England produced 15,127. Scholars in England usually sought a publisher on the continent for their works. There are a variety of reasons for this: the Reformation(s) boosted production in Germany, England's geography and state apparatuses made shutting down illicit printers a fairly trivial task, continental publishers were solidly established, to name a few. England remained a net importer of books until at least the 19th century.

Facts and figures taken from Andrew Pettegree's The Book in the Renaissance.

There's printing of course in the 15th century, with William Caxton. However, for a "spike" of popularity you really can't beat the huge number of pamphlets and tracts published during the English Revolution, from about 1640-1660. One collection, the Thomason Tracts has 22,000 items, filling 2,000 bound volumes. Most all were simply handed out, posted: someone living in London could open their door in the morning to discover it covered with printed papers fluttering in the wind. Much of this was religious, some of it was political, and ( being the 17th c. ) some was both.

I am reasonably sure that the rate of items published per year was not exceeded until sometime in the 20th century, but I don't have that reference here.