SUDBURY'S
SILK BUSINESSES
Gainsborough Silk
For 115 years, discerning designers, architects, specifiers and their clients have come through our doors in search of the most exquisite fabrics; designed, dyed, warped and woven with care and integrity.
Gainsborough is honoured to have held a royal warrant of appointment to Her Majesty since 1981 though, as is customary, the award recognised a trading relationship going back some years before then.
Humphries Weaving
Established in 1972, Humphries Weaving started manufacturing in Ashburton Lodge, Cornard Road, Sudbury, then relocating to Castle Hedingham and Braintree in Essex before returning after 30 years to Ashburton Lodge in 2004. What had started as a very small operation, soon become one of the country’s most prestigious and renowned silk weaving companies, having completed over 3500 high profile projects.
Stephen Walters
Stephen Walters is the oldest silk mill in the country, run by the same family of weavers for 300 years.
Established in 1720 in Spitalfields and based in Sudbury since 1860, the company weaves materials for international fashion brands or British royalty, for exclusive interior designers and for the luxury superyacht industry.
Vanners
Vanners was established in 1740 by three brothers, descendants of French Huguenots who were welcomed into this country when their own rejected them. The company originated in Spitalfields, London where Huguenot weavers established the English silk industry in the 1700s.
In the 1850s, they merged their business with Fennell Brothers and began to move production from Spitalfields in East London to Sudbury, where there was an even longer tradition of weaving.
Vanners continued weaving in Sudbury for nearly 300 years, designing, developing and manufacturing silk fabrics and products for the luxury menswear, fashion and furnishing markets until their closure in 2022.
