Newtown Textile Museum

Our story

The Textile Museum in Newtown - just over the bridge into Commercial Street, (see the map) gives visitors a chance to see how the handloom weavers of the mid-19th century lived and worked.

The block which houses the Museum was built in the 1830s as a hand-loom weaving factory, the looms occupying the top two floors above three pairs of two storey back-to-back houses on the lower floors.

Newtown's development into a centre of industry is described through exhibits in the former cottages. On the top two floors the story of fleece to flannel is illustrated by looms and spinning wheels, alongside displays of related industries and influential local people such as Pryce Jones.

We also have exhibits of modern wool craft and demonstrations by experts in spinning, weaving and quilt making.

We hope you will find the Museum an interesting and enjoyable place to visit when we re-open, hopefully, in May. 

Take a look at our new Museum of the Future segment on the News page and join in.

You can also still enjoy some of the stories of our objects on our social media sites and our Come-Inside page while our building is closed for the winter, and don't forget to try some of the jigsaws.  

The Museum will now be shut until the beginning of May 2021. All being well, we will hope to return to our normal opening hours and be back with new exhibitions, and regular demonstrations of weaving and spinning next summer. Over the winter, we will be adding to our Come Inside page, and Jigsaw page as well. 

Let us hope that 2021 will be a better year for everybody, including Museums!

Thinking of JoiNING us

We are always keen to recruit new volunteers. In the summer season we would welcome more people to be hosts at the Museum when it is open, but there are other jobs as well, even in the winter. Now is a good time to get involved.

If you would like to join us, do please make contact. 

Sign up now.  We can arrange for you to visit the Museum so we can tell you about the ways you can share in telling our story. Contact us through either of these addresses:

 volunteer.coordinator@newtowntextilemuseum.co.uk   or for more general information admin@newtowntextilemuseum.co.uk