Of carpets and rugs

Pile pads for the seat and back of a wooden chair must have been very comforting and maybe they were the forerunners of the stall seats now being worked for so many churches.

Twenty such cushions were made between 1660 and 1667 for the Bishop of Ely and bequeathed by him to Pembroke College, Cambridge.

It was towards the end of the eighteenth century that hand-knotted carpet-making became a flourishing industry in England.

From that time onwards knotted carpets were produced in several places, Axminster and Wilton being the best known, while considerably later William Morris did much to keep the art alive.