Meet the makers at Araminta Campbell

In Walpole’s 'Meet the Makers' portfolio for the Book of British Luxury 2026/2027, we celebrate the people behind the design of the products and services that have become a global calling card for British luxury excellence. From historic hand-printed wallpaper to timeless trench coats, we speak with the highly skilled individuals who pour their passion into their respective crafts to create new British icons.

In this edition, we travel to the workshop of Araminta Campbell, just outside Edinburgh. Known for its intricately crafted textiles, the brand is Britain's largest employer of hand-weavers and a hub for nurturing this heritage skill here in the UK.

Now celebrating the brand’s tenth anniversary, she confesses she never really had a business plan beyond “continuing the creativity and working with people”. Straight out of university, she invested a 21st birthday gift of £1,000 from her grandfather on her first loom – and the team still work on it today, alongside three others she has subsequently invested in, all by the same maker, George Wood. “They are pieces of art in themselves,” she says. “I’ve got the first commissioned loom he ever made. We bought one from a lady who had never unpacked it, we’ve framed his handwritten instructions on how to put it together, the invoice, everything.”

Asked what qualities she looks for in her team, Birse-Stewart enthuses about the passion and interest that they all show for their role. There is a shared commitment to artistry, heritage and sustainability – a quiet sense of pride in mastering timehonoured techniques to create heirlooms of the future. But at a more fundamental level, she says: “One of the questions I ask myself in every interview is, ‘Do I want to have lunch with this person?’ No matter how good they are, their skills, their personality, these are people you’ll be working with, and that you trust. And we’ve been so lucky that a lot of our work has come by word of mouth. Is that because we’re good at what we do? Yes. But I also believe it’s because people really like working with us. The projects come together because of the collaborative nature of the way our projects work.”

Helen Etheron is the Senior Handweaver, overseeing the team as well as working closely with clients to bring bespoke designs to life. “It’s a remarkable place to work,” she says. “It’s the foundations of the brand and what they were built on. Araminta created the brand with this unshakeable belief in responsible sourcing, the preservation of heritage skill and the creation of woven works of art – not product. And we’re still just as committed to those principles as when she first started by herself.”

The challenge, says Etheron, is to continue to champion those principles as they grow, without diluting them. And that, of course, takes a lot of work to maintain, with extreme attention to detail at every stage, from hand grading every single fleece that comes in to quality checking the final product.

But being a sanctuary of craftsmanship isn’t enough. Birse-Stewart is acutely aware of the loss of skills in the industry, and is currently investing some of the profit into “little looms to teach nine-year-olds on” as part of a project to introduce her love of weaving into local schools. Asked about her ambitions for the brand, she is sanguine. “If we can confidently say that we have had a positive impact on the Scottish textile industry and getting more young people to keep it alive, that will be me happy.”

Photography by Sam Walton