Friends excursions: Layer Marney Tower and the Warner Textile Archive
Tuesday 31 October 2017 9am - 7.30pm
Join the coach on Piccadilly outside the RA. Please note that the coach will leave promptly at the time stated on the ticket.
£95. Includes coach, coffee, two-course set lunch, wine, tea and cake.
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Join Friends for a tour of Layer Marney Tower, the tallest Tudor Gatehouse in the country, and the Warner Textile Archive, a vast collection of over 100,000 textiles from around the world.
Layer Marney Tower, built in the 1520s during the reign of Henry VIII, is in many ways the apotheosis of the Tudor Gatehouse. The tower was home to Lord Henry Marney, who intended his new home to rival the grandeur of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s recently built Hampton Court Palace. The main range measures some 300 feet long and the principal gatehouse is about 80 feet tall. We will privately tour the gatehouse and tower with its present owners Nicholas and Sheila Charrington and visit the nearby church that houses the magnificent tombs of the Marney family.
Before visiting Layer Marney Tower, we travel first to the Warner Textile Archive which is housed in the original Warner & Sons mill building in Braintree. The Warner Textile Archive’s vast collection holds more than 100,000 textiles, including handwoven silks, block printed wallpapers and historic clothing items including hand-beaded caps from Africa, embroidered kimonos and a beautiful stitched coat from Kazakhstan. The Warner family’s connections with the textile industry date back to the late 17th century when William Warner worked as a scarlet dyer in Spitalfields. Following his death in 1712, his sons and grandsons carried on the family business, establishing Warner & Sons firmly on the textile industry map. Today, the collection provides a wealth of design and inspiration spanning centuries of creativity. Our visit includes a talk on the history of the company and archive and a viewing of a carefully curated selection of some of the most exquisite items in the collection.