All visits begin at Braintree Museum. Please be aware that your tour includes a short walk from Braintree Museum through the centre of town to access the Warner Textile Archive.

Join us on one of our popular behind the scenes tours to discover how to decorate a palace. Visit Braintree Museum for an introductory talk and refreshments, then see historic textiles up-close at the Warner Textile Archive that were supplied to the royal household, and learn more about the long association between Warner & Sons and palace refurbishments. Warner & Sons can trace its connection to palace decoration from orders placed for silk furnishing fabric by Queen Victoria in 1887. Patterns still present in Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Balmoral date from this period and were reproduced for the royal residences for more than a hundred years by Warner & Sons. Queen Elizabeth II was a prolific customer, often replacing existing designs supplied decades before, with the same fabric years later. King Charles III has inherited these sumptuous interiors and can already often be seen greeting important guests in rooms still displaying designs first introduced to the palaces by his great-great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.