Thanks to Gavin Kermack and Tanya Gupta of BBC Online News for the Headline
Sad to say a piece of Heritage from the heady days of Carpet Making in Kidderminster is going to be lost. A “Carpet Museum” dedicated to recording the history of Kidderminster’s role in the industry from Domesday to most recently factories which employed thousands and meant that Kidderminster was responsible for making half the carpets produced in the UK in the period after the war and up until the 1970’s.
The most recent casualty was a Company called Adams Carpets who unfortunately went into administration this year due to immense financial pressures. They made their carpets from 80% British Wool and 20% Nylon. Imagine the skills that were involved in that.
And now the museum, with it’s two 19th Century handlooms called Victoria and Albert is now closing, perhaps due to lack of visitor numbers. It’s important and a history that we should be able to look back on. Perhaps it will be mothballed and the handlooms relocated as they are still workable and can be used by artisans interested in making cloth.(as indeed one of the volunteers has done and in the past has used both looms to make cloth) .
I hope the museum’s other treasures are not lost , books, photographs and objects that were needed to manufacture what were once the best carpets in the World. We should not throw away such treasured artefacts so easily or indeed forget the history of Carpet making in Kidderminster.
thenotsomightyom 