Mortlake Tapestry Works

The Mortlake Tapestry Works was established alongside the River Thames at Mortlake, then outside, but now in South West London, in 1619 by Sir Francis Crane. It produced lighter, if vastly more expensive, decoration for rooms than the previously favoured Elizabethan wood panelling. King Charles I was a heavy investor and it prospered. The English Civil War disrupted all luxury goods businesses. Oliver Cromwell tried to help. Charles II imposed heavy duties on competitive imports, but the decline could not be reversed. It closed in 1704; some of the weavers continued to work privately.^[1]