Warner Textile Archive

It opened in 1993 and is the second-largest collection of publicly-owned textiles in the UK (after the Victoria & Albert Museum).

[1] Based in Braintree, Essex the Archive consists of some 100,000 items representing the creative and commercial legacy of Warner & Sons, a leading textile manufacturer that operated from Braintree throughout much of the twentieth century.

[1] Warner & Sons was a leading manufacturer of silk and velvet, as well as producing a wide range of other woven fabrics.

[3] Representing two centuries of UK textile manufacturing history, the archive features work by artists/designers such as Augustus Pugin, William Morris, Vanessa Bell, Marianne Straub, Hans Tisdall, Lynton Lamb and Graham Sutherland.

[1][2] The Warner archive was conserved for many years by the wallpaper and fabric company Walker Greenbank which sold the collection to Braintree in 2004.