Museum of carpet - Spool Axminster loom

Image: © Chris Allen Taken: 5 Oct 2019

This is the last surviving example in the UK and is demonstrated weaving a 27" wide section of carpet. When this runs out of yarn in a few years time that may well be the end of it as a working demonstration due to the amount of yarn required to set it up again and the diminishing pool of specialist skills in Kidderminster. There are 288 spools carrying 20 colours and mounted on an endless chain. Each spool is one row of the pattern and that repeats after 288 rows. Each spool us presented in turn to the plane where the warp and weft of the backing meet. The coloured pile threads are anchored to the backing by the weft (known as shots) and then cut to length by a knife. There are 189 tufts across the width and it weaves 26 rows of tufts per minute. This particular loom was manufactured in 1954 and is called a split shot loom because of the novel split insertion of the weft (shot) by long needles. I have never seen anything like this and the volunteers were very good at describing the processes. It is worth going before it runs out of yarn when it has woven over 300 yards of carpet.

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