Warner and Sons set up its business in Braintree at New Mills in 1895. Following a series of takeovers in the 1980s the company and its archive moved to Milton Keynes. In 2005 with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, other major charitable organisations and the generosity of individual donors the Braintree District Museum Trust, with the support of Braintree District Council, was able to return the archive to Braintree to the original site of New Mills. The site was renamed Warners Mill and given Grade 2 listed status.

Warner Ltd’s directors and designers travelled all over the world promoting Braintree and the fabric being designed and produced by local people. On their travels they collected fabric from around the world to use as inspiration for new designs. The company started buying up rival companies from the 1880s and added their designs and fabric to what eventually became the Warner Archive.

Along with over 60,000 textile samples, the Warner Textile Archive now stores commissioned designs from many influential designers including: John Aldridge, Edward Bawden, Vanessa Bell, Walter Crane, Marion Dorn, James Fitton, William Folliott, Alec Hunter, Owen Jones, William Morris, Marianne Straub, A.W.N Pugin, Arthur Silver, Bruce Talbot and C.F.A Voysey.

The archive also includes documents and photographs relating to the history of Warner’s business in Braintree. The Archive’s team is actively collecting information about the Mill and recording former employees’ memories of working for the company.