Print Archive

Adamley Textiles, home to the world’s most extensive historical print archive

Historical design inspiration for silk printing

The Adamley archive is a doorway into England’s rich and diverse textile heritage.

Following the decline of the silk industry at the end of the 20th century, the company has been able to acquire an extensive collection of designs from English and French mills – these include the internationally renowned David Evans archives.

300 years of history

Specialist silk printers for over 300 years, Adamley Textiles is a renowned British silk mill, steeped in history.

Throughout the years, we have curated an extraodinary textile library comprising of thousands of documents ranging from the 1700’s up to the present day.

The archive contains a series of beautiful leather bound books, filled with hand drawn designs, intricate prints, block printed patterns and prints on fabric.

David Evans print archive

As part of our extensive collection, Adamley have acquired the phenomenal print archives of David Evans & Co.

The company was internationally recognised for their Real Ancient Madder Silks, which were created using a special and secret process. We recently uncovered a vast number of these documents dating back to the 1920’s.

Our David Evans print archive comprises of many original hand drawn sketches, block prints and original fabric swatches.

A source of design inspiration

All designs in our archive are stored by subject: paisleys, medallions, geometric shapes and florals.

Thanks to digitisation, the archive is constantly updated and expanded and it’s regularly used by the in-house design department and by clients as source of inspiration in designing new collections.

Many designs from our archive have been repurposed and modernised with new colourways and produced into many luxury silk accessories including pocket squares, scarves and neck ties.

Our archive is open to clients who wish to take inspiration for their printed fabrics, using our digital printing or screen printing services.

Services & Products

SCREEN PRINTING

DIGITAL PRINTING

SILK SCARVES

SILK POCKET SQUARES