[1] Established in 1976 as the Victorian Tapestry Workshop, the Australian Tapestry Workshop was the product of years of research and planning by Lady Joyce Delacombe and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch supported by Premier and self-appointed Minister for the Arts Rupert Hamer.
It was agreed that if such a place were to exist in Australia it would have to engage weaver's artistic as well as their technical abilities.
The workshop was modelled on the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland, where artists and weavers collaborated to create tapestries.
It is a fine example of a Victorian Free Gothic style building and is included in the now defunct Register of the National Estate.
The building originally served as drapery establishment Harcourt and Parry Emporium and the Patross Knitting Mills, the title of which is still painted on the façade.