Axminster Carpets

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Celebrating 250 years of carpet manufacturing….

Axminster’s unique technical ability was displayed in glorious style on 21 June, when the culmination of several months’ work was presented to an appreciative crowd.

Axminster had offered to make a rug to commemorate 250 years of carpet production for the residents of the town Axminster.

Axminster’s designers researched the many different styles of rug produced by the company’s founder, Thomas Witty, and finally decided to use the ‘Landsdown’ rug as the basis for the final design. The company spent a total of three and a half months on the research and development stage before arriving at the finished article – a traditional Landsdown design modified with their own floral work and other design flourishes.

The company undertook extensive research to ensure that the rug’s colouration was both historically and architecturally accurate. The final colour scheme was selected to reflect the results of their research, but also appeal to the tastes of a modern audience.

The rug was constructed on a Axminster computerized Jacquard loom, with a deep pile for added luxury. Modern technology allowed the weave to be tighter than on a traditional Whitty rug, giving more scope for fine details. The 12ft x 19ft 8ins rug used 14,000 bobbins of yarn and two and a half days to weave.

In keeping with the tradition from Thamas Whitty’s time the rug was blessed by vicar in a re-enacted ceremony, before the town donated the luscious gift to a local Museum.

In total, four rugs to the same design were produced including one given as a gift to Prince Charles - who unfortunately could not be in attendance due to a prior engagement.

A few examples of original Whitty rugs can still be seen in stately homes around the country, including one at Saltran house, near Plymouth.

Quality Control
Having a unique selling point is an extremely effective marking tool and Axminster have them in abundance. An addition to their heritage, they have the greatest number of Axminster looms and the highest standards of quality control. They can uniquely guarrentee the standard their wool because they are the only ‘from fleece to floor’ manufacturer. Fleeces from the Axminster-owned Drysdale flock is combined with resilient, hard-wearing wool selected by experts from British Wool Marketing Board’s auctions. Axminster Carpets incorporate more than 90 per cent British wool in their carpet – a statistic unmatched in the industry. At the company’s Buckfast Mill, on the southern edge of Dartmoor, the raw wool is sorted according to fibre length and colour. White wool will be dyed in light or neutral colours while tainted fleeces are dyed to darker colours.

The wool fleeces are mechanically stretched out and blended, to provide the most suitable mix of wool, before entering a six stage washing process, enhanced by the abundance of water from the crystal clear streams of Dartmoor. After careful treatment, the wool is carded - a precisely monitored operation using progressively finer spiked rollers to comb out the wool fibres to a fine, uniform web – and spun at more than 5000 RPM into a single ply yarn. It may then be twisted into two or more ply to add strength and density - which affects its eventual weight and quality.

Colourfast dyes are used to produce delicate and subtle shades. The composition of the dye, its temperature and the emersion time are closely monitored. A computerised system ensures precise colour-matching. The wool ‘hanks’ are then rotated in a hydro-extraction unit to remove excess moisture and steam dried to ensure uniformity of moisture content. The hanks then cool and condition naturally before being wound onto more manageable cones and packaged for the weaving looms at Axminster. Several thousand kilos of yarn make this journey every working day.

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