The 1485 collection is being woven at Ashfield Mill in Burnley, once the world centre of the industrialised cotton industry. The mill is the last remaining traditional cotton weaver in a town that in the late 1920s boasted over 100,000 looms (more than one for every man, woman and child in the town).
The Ian Mankin brand was founded in the 1980s, and acquired by John Spencer Textiles in XXX. It is a sixth generation family weaving business run by the great-great-great grandson of the original founders, David Collinge.