Textile heritage sites around the globe

The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) is a global network for industrial heritage. TICCIH members come from ever-widening parts of the world. 

TICCIH promotes international cooperation in investigating, documenting, researching, and advancing education in industrial heritage. This includes material evidence of industry past and present, housing settlements, landscapes, products and processes, continuing skills, associated archives and artefacts.  

TICCIH plays a vital role in advising on historically significant industrial sites aspiring to join the UNESCO World Heritage List and is recognised by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) as its designated consultant in the study and conservation of industrial heritage. It facilitates research on priority themes, such as the global histories of the petroleum and textile industries – aspects of industrial heritage which play key roles in Scotland’s history. 

TICCIH website

Taking textile industries as a case study, which are the pioneers, the flagships, the giants, and the time capsules? Which networks best demonstrate international interchange? Did associated company towns fail or prosper? Some are World Heritage Sites - is the balance correct? What attributes do these places share, what makes them different, and what is missing?

It began with an obstacle met at the first World Heritage nomination in 1986 by New Lanark.

UNESCO did not know how to compare it to other industrial sites. It needed a comparative study and ICOMOS turned to TICCIH to provide this. The work could only begin after New Lanark was inscribed, at a second attempt in 2001, supported by comparisons under different headings.

The textile industry was the largest industrial employer in Britain during the period of the industrial revolution and was at the forefront of subsequent industrialisation in most other countries.

Now, it is impacted by globalisation because of the ease by which production can switch to developing countries.

This leaves a few special niche products (lace, plastics, tweeds, hosiery) made in Scotland and other advanced economies. But the potential of textile mills to be adaptively re-used ensures that they have a role to play in conserving places and re-using embodied energy.

An initial draft was compiled of places known to have more than local significance, and meetings of the TICCIH textile section helped to draw attention to places not known to the author. The places were allocated categories like Pioneer, Flagship, Time capsule, Giant, International transfer.

Two online workshops (an upside to the global pandemic- the initial intention was a meeting in Germany) were timed to facilitate participants around the world as the earth rotated, achieved extraordinary levels of participation.  

The research project is a joint collaboration by Historic Environment Scotland with architecture professors in Lodz Technical University in Poland and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (who has since relocated to Universität Wein).

The academics brought clarity of thought and engaged international students, such as from Egypt and Iran, and knowledge of Russian, which brought in places in the former Soviet Union. Historic Environment Scotland, as a research body but not a degree-giver, was able to ground the theories in reality of conservation practice, anticipating changes of use. It had no external funders.  

While few of the identified sites will become world heritage sites, the work helps to contextualise them and their supply chains, to identify gaps, test new theories and tell human stories. 

• View a six-minute summary of worldwide participation in the workshops on YouTube 
• Download “The Heritage of the Textile Industry” book
• Read more about the project