All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S08E07.Carpets.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-VTM_track3_[eng]

Most people nowadays...
..have a carpet in their home.

No, no, no. Where are you going?
That way.

Whoa, stop!
Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Whoa! We've done it.

Whether plain...
..or patterned...

..it always makes a room look cosy.

We love a bit of comfort underfoot,
so it's no surprise that the UK's

carpet and rug industry is worth
more than £900 million a year.

So to unravel
the secrets of carpet production...

..we've come to a place that's been
making them for over 80 years!

I'm Gregg Wallace...

Wayhey!

..and tonight, I'll be following
the journey of a carpet

from woolly beginnings...

I can't believe how much
wool is on him.

About 8-10 kilos, I would say.

..to intricate looms...

Here we go.

Whoa!

Every single lift
and drop of that loom

is producing another
multicoloured stripe.

..and careful inspection...

There are 290,304 tufts
on a carpet of this size.

And you're going to check
every single one? Yes.

..so it's strong and soft
for twinkle toes like mine!

Oh, stunning!

I'm Cherry Healey and...

..I'm discovering how science can
remove the most stubborn of stains.

And Ruth Goodman unfurls the history

of the UK's most intricate
carpet designs.

Every single little bit of thread
has to be knotted by hand.

It does.

46,000 square metres of carpet
are made in this factory every year.

And we are going to reveal
exactly how they do it.

Welcome to Inside The Factory.

This is the Axminster carpet factory
in Devon.

Founded in 1937, they have
a long history of carpet creation.

Axminster isn't just a brand name.

It's the name of the town
that's home to our factory.

And it's also the type of carpet
we're featuring,

made by intertwining knotted or
U-shaped tufts into a backing.

On this huge site,

they weave colourful yarn into
over 8,000 different styles,

creating carpet for everything
from your bedroom

to trains

and stately homes.

But I'm following the production of
one of their most popular designs,

the Havana Diamond Steel
wool carpet.

I guess that means
I'm going to need some wool.

Usually, my journey starts
at the factory's intake bay,

to meet a big tanker full of
a raw ingredient like flour,

but today, it's a bit different.

50 miles north is Vespasian Farm,

one of 20 farms that supply
our factory with wool.

It's home to a flock
of Grey-Faced Dartmoor sheep.

Meh!

Hey, look at these!

Along with ten other hardy breeds,

the wool from these beauties
creates the yarn for my carpet.

And to collect this essential
raw material,

the flock of 180 are in the process
of being sheared.

So I'm joining farm owner Rachel
Gatril in her barn to lend a hand.

Hello.
This is Andy Weir, he's our shearer.

Hello, Andy, I'm Gregg.
Is it a he or she?

It's a boy, yeah, it's a young ram.

Oh, this wool is beautiful,
isn't it?

I can't believe how much wool
is on him.

I can't believe how robust it is.
It's almost like a soft rope.

20% of the factory's wool
comes from the strong,

durable fleeces of these
Grey-Faced Dartmoors.

So how much of him now is wool,
in weight?

About 8-10 kilos, I would say.

Really?

Yeah. He does need his wool off,
because in the summer,

he'll get really hot,
so they need shearing.

Nowadays, most shearers
opt for electric clippers,

but Andy uses blades,

a more traditional method that takes
longer, but is kinder on the sheep.

The reason we're shearing
with the blades is that

the sheep generally
stay more relaxed,

and we can leave a nice
bit of cover of wool on the sheep.

We're leaving 10-15mm on that sheep,
and that also leaves

a good layer of lanolin, the
natural grease produced by the sheep

to keep them weatherproof, so we can
turn them out whatever the weather.

How many of those could
you do in a day?

On these Dartmoors,
probably about ten an hour.

One every six minutes.

They're shorn once a year
in the spring, after their thick

and durable fleeces have
kept them warm through winter.

And it's this strength that makes
the wool ideal for carpet making.

The flock provides the factory
with 1,350 kilograms of wool,

enough to make over 950
square metres of carpet.

This is second nature to you now,
right?

Some people go and play golf.
I shear sheep.

This may be an easy skill for Andy,
but I can't say the same for me.

Fingers on the bottom.

And those blades are very sharp,

don't stick your finger
in between them.

Left hand, just...
So I can clearly see there...

But don't pull the wool,
just raise it. That's it.

Oh-hoo! God, you're so scared

you're getting too close
to the animal. Oh!

So nervous of getting
close to his skin.

Phewf!

That was nerve-racking.

Hey!
It's almost like he was in disguise.

Now look at him!

You're all fresh and clean!

You look so handsome!

My friend, that was brilliant!
Thank you, thank you.

Phwoar, now my heart's started
to beat properly again!

With the sheep shorn,

the precious super-strength wool
is gathered and bagged,

and the production of my carpet
is under way.

After keeping their owners warm
through a long British winter,

it's no surprise this fleece is
tough enough to be made into carpet.

But while my raw wool is fluffy
and white, the carpet factory uses

a huge selection of colourful yarn
to create their myriad of designs.

Cherry's finding out what
it takes to turn a woolly fleece

into these multicoloured reels.

Once the annual shearing is over,
the raw fleeces are sorted

and graded,
and sent to places like this,

to blend, spin, and dye the wool.

Calder Textiles turn
1.5 million fleeces

into coloured yarn every year.

And 1.8 million miles
of it is supplied to our factory.

First, the wool is mixed
with 20% nylon to add durability.

Then it's carded,
a process which disentangles

and intermixes the wool, removing
short fibres and any plant matter.

It goes through
up to 17 different processes,

from blending to spinning,
which culminate in the fibres being

twisted together to make a
three millimetre-thick yarn,

before it's reeled into a 3.5
kilo batch, known as a hank,

ready to be dyed.

Stephen Norris is managing director
of the dye house.

Stephen, can I come in?
Of course.

Right, so I hear you're the
man to help me get these colours

on my carpet. I'll try.
Where do we begin?

Well, I received a master
from the customer, Station Blue.

Let's see.
So that is the colour we're after.

That's what we're going to be dying.
Station Blue. Yup.

The dye house can create
an enormous range of colours

to match their customers'
requirements,

on average making around 7,000
different colour dyes a year.

To create our Station Blue,
22 wool hanks, or 77 kilos in total,

are hung above a dye vessel
filled with 2,300 litres of water.

Oh, wow!
So this is where the magic happens.

We need to put in a product
called a restrainer blocker.

What does a restrainer blocker do?

The nylon has got a greater
affinity for the dyes than the wool.

And if we don't put this product in,

all the dye is going to rush
onto the nylon. OK.

So this helps us get a nice even
solid dyeing.

3.5 litres of restrainer blocker
are added to the tank.

Made from detergents,
it saturates the nylon,

allowing the wool to absorb
the coloured dye.

Next, two litres of acid are added
to the vessel, reducing the pH

level, which helps the molecules
in the dye attach to the wool.

And the yarn soaks in the mixture
for five minutes.

Finally,
it's time for our Station Blue.

Using a computer-programmed formula,

637g of synthetic dye
is mixed with five litres of water

and is added to the vessel.

Oh, my gosh! The water has
turned into the most beautiful,

rich, kind of aquamarine blue!

The water is gradually heated
to 98 degrees Celsius, which allows

the dye molecules to fully penetrate
the fibres of the wool.

And after half an hour, the hanks
of blue wool are lifted out.

Oh, look at that!

Wow!

But is it the exact shade
that we need?

Raw wool has many natural
colour variations,

which can impact the finished colour
when it's dyed,

so Stephen must check each batch

to make sure it's the perfect
hue of blue for our carpet.

What exactly are you looking for?

There's two things you need
to take into consideration

when checking the shade. The depth.
The depth.

And the tone.
And what's the difference?

Depth is whether
it's darker or lighter.

The tone is the actual shade.

You could say it was
greener or redder.

How do you feel about the depth
and the tone of this?

Well, I have to say I'm quite
pleased with that.

Are you? Yay!
Yes.

If it didn't match
the factory's example,

Stephen would have to repeat
some of the process.

Luckily, my sample has passed
with, well, flying colours.

But now that I know quite how much
work goes into making sure that

that blue is the perfect blue,

I'm really not sure I want anyone
to walk on it.

I'm back at the carpet factory
in Axminster,

five days, 15 hours and 35 minutes

since my wool was shorn.

It's been carded,
spun and dyed Station Blue,

and a batch of 300kg
has just arrived.

The wool is off-loaded
and delivered to the Yarn Store.

Inside, it's an Aladdin's cave
of thread.

A delivery of two tonnes
arrives every week,

and there are 2,500
different colours

to suit any carpet design
you desire.

Within this treasure trove of twine,

I'm meeting production director
Barry Searle.

Barry? Hello, I'm Gregg.
Hiya, Gregg. All right?

Beautiful array of colours.

I know, yeah. No, this is our base
colour library, so we've got

about 2,500 different colours in
here which we use for our designs.

What are these called, spools?
No, they're called cheeses. What?!

I know. It's a very strange thing,
but it's an old English name.

It's not used just for carpet yarn.

It's any thread, that's on a
cone-shaped container like that.

It's called a cheese. That sounds
funny, doesn't it? Cheese.

How much yarn
is on one of these cheeses?

A full cheese, like one of these,
is about 5,200 linear metres

on there, which is about the
equivalent to one good sheep fleece,

scoured and cleaned
and spun into yarn.

That's one sheep?
That's about one sheep.

And one sheep goes 5,000 metres?!
5,000 metres.

So how many metres of yarn
have you got in here?

So we have about 38,000km,

which is about enough to go around
the circumference of the world.

We have a lot of yarn on site.

So for your carpet,
there's four colours.

This is the last colour that
we just had delivered today.

Each cheese carries
a standard 3mm yarn,

specifically tailored for carpets.

Along with Station Blue,

my carpet also contains
Med Green, Oyster Grey,

and Chroma Silver.

I've got my colours, but before
I can start carpet making,

I need my design.

So I'm heading to the factory's
design studio

to meet design director Gary Bridge.

Hey! Gary, right?
Hi, Gregg, yeah.

And you are in charge of design.
I am, yes.

And these, I can see,
are my colours. They are.

Is that my design?
It is your design, yes.

So this is done on computer, right?
It is, yes.

All carpet is designed on basically
graph paper. Little squares.

Carpets are made up of thousands
of little tufts of yarn,

usually measuring between
12.7 and 25.4mm in length.

And each one of these tufts
is represented by a square

on the graph paper.

While there's no standard
carpet size,

we're making a 10 x 3.6 metre order,

which, width-ways, will measure
1,152 of these little squares.

Everything is designed
within a square inch,

and so the more squares or tufts of
yarn you'll get within that square

inch, the more compact it becomes,
the better the quality it is.

So at Axminster, we are
what we call eight pitch,

so there are eight squares
to the inch.

Is that like the amount of pixels in
a photograph, or on your TV screen?

Exactly the same as that.

The more pixels you get, the better
the definition,

the better the quality,
it's exactly the same, yes.

So we've printed it out off the
computer, all your design

and information is on this USB,

and then you go plug
it into the loom.

Thank you very, very much.
Thank you. Nice to meet you.

The factory comes up with
400 patterns a year

to suit all manner of tastes.

Most of us take it for granted
that our rug or carpet

can be design or colour we want,
but Ruth's been investigating

a time when a patterned carpet
was the absolute height of luxury.

Before the 18th century,

carpets were far too precious
to put on the floor.

In fact, most of them
were displayed like this,

laid out on a table
for all to admire.

The earliest carpet dates back
to as far as the 5th century BC.

But in Britain, they really came
to prominence in the 15th century,

when carpets were imported at
vast expense from the Ottoman

and Persian empires.

But it took a savvy entrepreneur
to turn an imported luxury

into a home-grown success story.

Thomas Whitty was an entrepreneur
willing to engage in a spot

of industrial espionage
to build his carpet empire.

And it all started in the town
that's home to our carpet factory,

Axminster.

So, I've come to the street where
Thomas Whitty's first carpet

factory stood to meet local
historian Laurence Hitchcock.

Hello, Laurence.
Hello, Ruth.

Welcome to lovely Axminster.
Thank you.

Who exactly was Mr Whitty?

Mr Whitty was a weaver of cloth.

His family was growing,
he had a big family,

and he was finding it really hard
to provide for them all.

The money Whitty made
from cloth like this

barely gave him enough
to feed his 12 children.

So, when he first saw the imported
Middle Eastern carpets,

Whitty realised that, if he could
recreate them in Britain,

at a cheaper price,
it could make him a fortune.

The question was - how?

He'd heard about a weaver in Fulham
and actually went there,

said he was a relation of somebody
or other, and actually got in.

And what did he find?

He saw how they were weaving
on a different type of loom

that he had here in Axminster.

Like most English weavers
of the day,

Thomas Whitty was using a horizontal
machine known as a treadle loom.

This relatively simple device held
thread lengthwise under tension,

while another thread was woven
crossways through it

to knit it together
and create a cloth.

But what he spied in London
was a loom that made carpets

with the same detail as those
from the Middle East,

and to achieve that,

it needed a simple yet radical
adjustment to the loom.

In 1755, Witty copied the idea
and set about building his own.

Oh!

There you have his vertical loom
that he made.

An upright loom, not flat.
Yes. Not flat, no.

To help me understand why
the vertical loom was

so vital to Thomas Whitty's carpets,

weaver Judy Percival is going to
show me his early technique.

Instead of being laid horizontally,
the loom holds the threads upright,

while the weaver attaches
the woollen tufts.

Here are three of the tuft threads.

OK.
Thread it through into the middle.

I've got sausage fingers.

When you've done about 50,
you'll be really quick!

And then pull your knot down
nice and tight.

And that's how you make a carpet,

every single little bit of thread
has to be knotted like this by hand.

It does.

Wow! So labour intensive!

The tufts were knotted
and added one line at a time,

with an interwoven thread
to hold them in place.

Due to the popularity
of Whitty's carpets,

the technique became known as
the Axminster weave.

Depending on the size of the carpet,

this could take weeks
or even months to complete,

and would have been
completely backbreaking

on a traditional horizontal loom.

If you're doing it on a horizontal
loom, you're reaching over to do it.

It would take so long,
and so difficult.

It wasn't just that the upright loom
allowed the weaver to work

comfortably for hours on end,
it also meant that multiple weavers

could work on a single carpet
at the same time.

Suddenly, Thomas Whitty's large
family was no longer a burden,

but an asset.

He did have six daughters and aunts
who were all looking for work.

Ah, so he had a ready-made female
labour force. Yes, absolutely.

Drawing on the weaving skills
of his family

allowed Whitty to keep costs low.

The first carpet he sold in 1757

cost just a third of that of
his closest competitor.

Word quickly spread amongst the
aristocracy that this small corner

of Devon was producing Ottoman-style
carpets at a fraction of the price.

And in 1770, he received
his biggest commission yet,

to make a carpet for the glorious
Saltram House near Plymouth,

now cared for by the National Trust.

Wow!

Remember that most people in the
18th century had never set foot

on a carpet.

So what I'm about to do
would have seemed to them

like the very pinnacle of luxury.

Zoe Shearman is the curator
here at Saltram.

Zoe, hello!
Hi, Ruth.

This is stunning, isn't it?
Absolutely beautiful.

It's thought to be
the most significant carpet

in the collection of the Trust.

Staggeringly, this carpet was made
in a single piece

on a gigantic custom-built loom.

At six metres wide,

it was larger than the looms
in most modern factories today.

The loom would have been
suspended from the ceiling,

and we think about nine people would
have been working, sitting down.

So we've got a six-metre roller
hung up high and then another one

at the bottom, another six-metre
roller, with all the threads

down on it, and this great long row
of people,

sat side by side, working on it.

Knotting, each knotting.

Thomas Whitty's carpets made
the once-struggling weaver

one of the most celebrated
businessmen of his day,

and created a globally
famous industry.

And after seeing a carpet like this
up close,

it's no surprise that Whitty's
Axminster weave made such an impact.

Who wants to go back to bare floors
after this?!

British homes would never
be quite the same again.

267 years since the start of
Thomas Whitty's pioneering business,

the factory in Axminster is
carrying on the town's tradition

of carpet making.

While the days of hand-weaving
may be over,

the factory has 12 looms creating
up to 100 different designs a week.

With 40,000 working parts
from front to back...

..these looms weave two metres
of carpet an hour.

And each one covers
23 square metres.

Armed with my design, and my trolley
of cheeses, it's time I got weaving!

All right, mate?

So I'm heading to the back of
one of these monsters...

..where weaver Steve Marks
is in charge.

Hey!
Hi, Gregg.

They are massive.
Yeah. They're not little.

So where do we start? What do we do?
Right, OK.

This is the back of the loom,
this is where all of the yarn

gets loaded in to be
taken up to the front.

Once my design's uploaded
to the loom's computer,

it's time for my
four coloured cheeses.

Yep, so we'll have all of those.

And Steve's not hanging about.

All right. Shall I bring them? Yeah,
you're going to have to be quicker

than that.
OK, mate!

We've got to work here.
He's demanding, this man!

You're making me look bad.

Do tell me we're going to stick
the cheeses on a stick.

Yeah. Onto each one of these.

My cheeses are in position,

and they've been placed next to
one of the most intriguing

pieces of machinery
I think I've ever seen.

What is this?! It looks like
an enormous cheese grater,

but there's a bit of thread coming
out of every single metal pocket.

What's going on? Right, well,
this is the smart creel.

Each one of these are
what we know as bins.

We load all of the yarn in here.
It's drawn from the back,

and then drawn up into
the front of the loom.

The smart creel at the back
of the loom is divided into

two pairs of eight frames.

Each pair of frames has 1,152 bins

containing a specific colour yarn.

The yarn leads through the bins
to the back of the smart creel

and is taken up through individual
pipes to the front of the loom,

ready to be woven.

Right, Gregg, we're going to
load up the yarn

and start loading your colours
into the smart creel.

Once the cheese of yarn is ready,

the loom's computer tells the
smart creel to top up each bin

with the correct amount,
using an automated arm.

Pressurised air blasts the yarn
into the bins, where it sits loose,

ready to be called upon by the loom.

Overall, it will take
11,000 metres of yarn

to create my 10 x 3.6 metre carpet.

Oh, wow!

The smart creel works out exactly
how much yarn it needs

per individual bin for
the entire length of your carpet.

Wow!

That's like a computer
working out what I'm going to want

for breakfast, lunch
and dinner for the next three years

and delivering it on time.

Yeah, pretty much.

Before this came along,
it was all done by hand,

which could take two men
anything up to 50 hours.

50 hours.

Yeah. Nothing is quick
in carpetmaking.

Once my yarn has been loaded
into the smart creel's bins,

it's fed through the other side
to the heart of the loom.

Through there?
Yeah, in through there.

So I'm following it,
inside the belly of the monster,

to meet master weaver
Mike Hutchings.

Hello, my friend.
Hi, Gregg.

Am I right in thinking that
your environment changes colour

every day? Yeah, it does. Yeah!

So these are the strands from
every bin? Yeah, every single bin.

From the bins at the back,
each one of my colourful lengths

of yarn is fed through individual
tubes to the front of the loom.

But as well as wool,

there's another essential component
for my carpet...

..cotton.

This is your cotton over here,
Gregg.

This is what we use
for the base of the carpet.

So my bits of coloured yarn
are being woven through cotton?

They are, yeah,
that's exactly right.

The beams of cotton yarn
are held under tension

and laid lengthwise,
ready to form the base of my carpet.

This is known as the warp.
Cotton is perfect for weaving,

as it stays strong
when it's stretched.

The 1,152 strands on each beam

are also fed from
the rear of the loom,

to where the carpet action happens.

Right, Gregg, this is where
everything comes together.

So this is now
the front of the loom. Yeah.

And this looks like the inside of
the grandest piano I've ever seen.

Well, I suppose it's similar
in a way, yeah.

So this is an Axminster
eight pitch gripper loom.

An eight pitch loom creates
a carpet in lines,

using eight tufts of yarn per inch.

Can I now see this in action?

You can actually start the loom up.

I think that's probably the way
to go. An honour, an honour!

Here we go. There's reset.

And now go!

Whoa!

Wow!

How lovely is that?

A 30 centimetre long
needle shoots back

and forth across the cotton warp,
carrying lengths of 2.5 millimetre

thick fibre made of jute,
called weft.

So that jute is going up and down
through the cotton,

weaving the cotton together?
Exactly.

Meanwhile, the strands of coloured
woollen yarn are fed into sliding

carrier frames, which hold them in
position at the front of the loom.

So, basically, Gregg,
all of those tufts of yarns

that are fed from the smart creel
to the back are all here now.

Do you see the way the carriers
are lifting up there

to select the colours of yarn?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Above the loom, a computer program
controls a network of strings

attached to the carriers,
holding the different coloured yarn,

telling them whether to move up

or down.

To select the colourful wool
that makes my design,

grippers rise up to collect the
strands from the frame,

cutting a tuft measuring
14 millimetres in length,

and pulling it down
towards the cotton.

A bit like a massive filing system.

So it's lifting to the exact place
along that top line,

ready to select.

That's beautiful!

How does our coloured yarn
get on to the cotton?

The grippers bring it down,

and then we send another shot
across, which will tie that all in.

With each journey of the shuttle
back and forth,

1,152 individual
tufts of yarn are woven in,

creating my colourful carpet.

To weave in the wool...

..the grippers deliver the tufts
between the cotton warp.

The needle carrying the jute weft
is threaded over the wool yarn,

holding it in place.

Another weft is delivered

and the cotton warps
change position,

before another weft is woven in,

and the process begins again.

That is fabulous.

That is carpet forming
in front of my eyes. Exactly.

Every single lift
and drop of that machine, that loom,

is producing another
multicoloured stripe.

As my design appears, row upon
row of tufts create a carpet

with a pile exactly
8.1 millimetres deep.

Nowadays, you'll find a carpet
in almost every home,

but there was a time
when tufts weren't the only trend

when it came to floor covering,
as Ruth's been finding out.

For the 1950s housewife,
clean floors were paramount

and one material became
a firm favourite - linoleum.

Durable, affordable,
and very easy to clean,

this humble British flooring
became a global phenomenon.

But the original lino
is far from its modern counterpart.

So to uncover its surprising
history, I'm in Glasgow,

at a time capsule of a house

that hasn't much changed
for nearly a century.

100 years ago,
when this house was furnished,

the owners chose to use linoleum,

which, at that time, was the most
fashionable of floor coverings.

Helping me to uncover its origins

is National Trust Scotland's
Emma Inglis.

Emma, hello. Hello, Ruth.
What a wonderful house!

Isn't it just?

Emma's team are in the midst
of restoring the home,

and today, I'm giving her a hand.

Much of the linoleum in this
prosperous merchant's house

dates from the 1920s.

Many people, when they hear the
word lino, what they've actually

got in their heads as an image,
is vinyl flooring, isn't it?

But lino's something different.
What exactly is it?

Well, lino is made out of natural
materials, as opposed to vinyl,

which is made out of
sort of man-made plastics.

Lino is made out of linseed oil,
cork dust,

resin, and colour pigments.

Linseed oil,
the crucial ingredient in linoleum,

is made by pressing the dried seeds
of a plant called flax.

For centuries, the oil has been
a key ingredient in paint,

because it congeals
when exposed to air,

locking the colourful pigments
in place.

But it took an accidental
discovery in the 19th century

to inspire someone to create this
thick, durable floor covering.

So who invented linoleum, then?

Linoleum was invented by
a man called Frederick Walton

around about 1860.

His family business was in brush
making. One day in his workshop,

he noticed an open tin
of linseed oil paint

that had been sitting open
for some time.

I've got an example
of that over here.

He could see that a skin had started
to form on the top of the paint,

and so that got him thinking.

Walton's brainwave was that
a linseed oil base

could be spread out onto a backing

and then kiln-dried to create
a hard-wearing waterproof flooring.

Pigments could be added
to create colourful patterns.

From that simple idea sprung
an extraordinary success story.

He patented it in 1863.

By 1872, he was already exporting
to America and setting up

a lino manufactory over there
and cracking the American market.

Walton's American factory was
so successful that an entire town

called Linoleumville sprung up
to house the workers.

Soon, lino was all the rage,
not just in Britain and America,

but across fashionable Europe too,

and by the 20th century,
it was available almost everywhere.

Hello!
Hi, I've come to show you some lino.

Come on in.
Thank you.

Lily Barnes is running
the country's biggest-ever project

on the history of linoleum
for the Fife Cultural Trust.

She's brought along some pattern
books from the golden age of lino

in the 1920s and '30s.

Oh, my goodness! They are so varied!
Yeah.

By the 1920s, linoleum production
was a huge industry,

worth the equivalent today
of almost £800 million a year

to the British economy.

There were options for everybody,
from extravagant designs

to plainer lino that cost
a quarter of the price.

This staggering variety was possible
thanks to the flexibility

of the printing process.

We've got this painting of
the printing lofts

in one of the factories.

He's spreading the paint
onto the printing block

and just printing
the red squares on.

You're not constrained by having to
weave a pattern from threads,

or having to make something
out of tiles.

You can just do whatever you want.

It could be anything.
Absolutely, yeah.

For decades, lino was king.

But things changed
when plastic-based vinyl flooring

became popular in the 1960s.

Because artificial plastics were
cheaper than the natural ingredients

in linoleum,
vinyl could undercut lino on price.

And over time,
lino came to be confused

with the worst qualities
of vinyl flooring.

Vinyl flooring was of lower quality,

and so it didn't last as long
as lino does.

Lino gets conflated with vinyl,
and all the things that are bad

about vinyl, people start to
lay at lino's door, unfairly.

So actual lino suffers a decline.
Yes.

In its pomp in the 1950s,

there were nine large firms
producing linoleum in the UK.

By the '80s, just one remained.

But happily,
that's not the end of the story.

After years in the doldrums, lino's
staging somewhat of a comeback.

Customers nowadays, we are thinking
about not just the longevity

of things for us and how long is
it going to be in our house,

but what happens after it leaves
our house?

Can it be recycled?
Absolutely.

What's the imprint of it afterwards?

So thanks to its
natural ingredients,

lino has had a resurgence
in recent years,

with British production up
by 50% since the 1980s.

And no wonder, given what good
condition it's still in

after nearly a century of hard wear.

Back at the carpet factory,

the monster loom has woven its magic
for ten hours,

and the threads of wool, cotton,
and jute have been transformed

into my ten-metre roll of carpet...

..which is now transported
to Finishing.

And I'm on my way to discover
what happens next,

with the help of operator
Ewan Guppy.

Hey, Ewan. Yeah. Hello, my friend...
Wayhey! That's my carpet!

Ewan, I love that.
Why have you hung it up here?

Not just for me to look at, surely.

Your carpet is attached
to what we call the shearer.

It shears it just like
an old-fashioned lawnmower.

But I've already sheared the sheep!
I've now got to shear the carpet?

Yeah.

The shearer is almost as big
as the loom, at 17 metres long,

nine wide, and four metres high.

My carpet is attached to
a row of other designs,

all lining up to be sheared.

This caravan of carpets
is fed through a series of S-bends

and rollers to keep them tight,
before they arrive at the blades.

I'm a bit nervous for my carpet.
There it goes!

As it enters the shearer...

..two blades
rotate at a speedy 600 rpm,

shearing 2mm off the top
of the tufts,

leaving them a perfectly even
length.

You are a carpet barber,

something I've had no need of
for the last 30, 40 years.

Finally, the carpet goes through
another set of blades

to neaten any rogue threads.

Bit like trimming it with scissors
and then finally shaving it.

Having had its 2mm off the top,

it's time to see if my carpet's
trip to the barbers was a success.

That does look completely different
and feels different.

That is really soft!

That is so soft,
you could lay on it.

That is lovely!

Look how much sharper it looks.

So is that it?
Is our carpet finished?

I'm afraid not.
Once it's fully out of the shearer,

it's got to go over to Emma
at Inspecting.

My freshly sheared carpet
is lowered onto a transporter table

and wheeled to Inspection...

..where it's pinned to
a giant roller,

ready for head carpet inspector
Emma Tytherleigh.

So this is what we call
the inspection table. Righto.

And we're going to run the carpet we
just pinned on onto the table. Sure.

Here it comes.
Here it is.

In a moment, we're going to be,
like, inside the carpet. We are.

I'm going to turn
the bottom lights on now,

and we're going to check
for missing tufts.

Why have you turned the lights off?

Then we can see the light shining
from the light box underneath.

Oh, I see! I see.

So if there's a hole in the carpet,
the light will shine through.

Yeah. If there's any missing tufts,
we'll see them.

There are 290,304 tufts
on a carpet of this size.

Wow!

And you're going to check
every single one? Yes.

I'm telling you right now,

there will be no missing tufts
on my carpet.

My carpet is perfect,

and I am surprised
you've suggested otherwise.

Well, we're going to check it,
just to make sure.

All right. Go on, then.
You won't find anything.

Not on this tableful.
Shall we move it on? Yeah.

You're wasting your time,
I'm telling you.

Ah! Look!

There's a problem. I know that Mike.
I never trusted him.

He didn't look like he
was concentrating.

Look at that, look! The light's
shining through it, clearly.

We've definitely got tufts missing.

So what's caused that? Just the loom
hasn't put them in? Yes.

We're going to have to repair them.
How do we do that?

I'll show you. But we're going to
have to put the lights on.

Using a collection of coloured yarns
that match my design,

Emma fixes every
imperfection by hand.

So what are you doing?

Are you going through
the weave of the cotton? I am.

I'm putting it in
just as a loom would,

so I'm replacing the tufts.

Wow! That's attention to detail.

Hang on a minute, you've just done
it. And I just chopped it off.

That's amazing!
That's like invisible mending. Mm.

I didn't really see
how you did that.

So you just looped some round...
What secured it?

It's secured, as I wrap it round
the middle jute,

and that's what secures it.
It's exactly the same as the loom.

Emma, that is really skilful.
How long have you been doing this?

34 years.

Do you,
when you go to people's houses,

really stare at their carpet?
Do you? Mm.

How closely do you inspect
other people's carpets?

I'm not on my hands and knees
or anything, but I do look.

Do you?
Yeah.

It's good to know that my carpet
is in such careful hands.

Over the next two hours,
Emma inspects every inch of wool

to make sure it meets
her very high standards.

After all the work
that's gone into this carpet,

you'd be really upset
if you spilt something on it.

But when accidents do happen,
what's the best solution?

Cherry has been busting some myths.

Some mistakes are so disastrous...

SLOW MOTION: Nooo!

..we need a miracle to fix them.

And many of us
think we have just that -

a cupboard full of remedies
to get rid of the toughest stains.

Everyone's got their own opinion

on the best way to get out
carpet stains,

but which of these miracle
methods actually works?

For answers, I've come to the
Good Housekeeping Institute's

specialist lab in London,
where Laura Cohen and her team

carry out 4,000 consumer tests
a year.

Today, we're testing common
home remedies

for getting rid of three
particularly tough carpet stains.

We are testing buttered toast,

we're testing milk,
and we're testing red wine.

Stain one,
the dreaded buttered toast,

which you know is going to fall
face down every time.

All carpets, wool or otherwise,
are made from absorbent material,

so once there's a spillage,
it stains easily.

There, I see a lovely piece
of carpet, all lovely and clean...

Ha-ha-ha, for now!

Oh, stunning!

The stain from buttered toast

is caused by the fats
within the butter.

I'm pitching my home remedy
against Laura's suggested method

for getting rid of oily,
buttery stains.

Right, bicarb of soda is
good for getting out stains. Mm-hm.

You go for that one, you need some
water. All right. Here we go.

And I'm going to go for
the methylated spirits.

That is what I use
to clean my paint brushes.

I know it might seem harsh,
but let's see.

To explain the science behind
stains, chemist Reshma Akhter,

one of the Institute's
expert testers,

has come along to spill the beans,
hopefully not on my carpet!

Reshma,
why are greasy stains like butter

so difficult to get out of carpet?

So oils are made up of long fatty
chains with incredibly strong bonds.

This makes them stick to
the carpet fibres

and essentially harder to remove.

But banking on bicarb to remove
these fatty chains of butter

was a boo-boo.

Bicarb hasn't got rid of
all the colour.

In fact, you can see it's still
really yellow. Yeah.

It's essentially created a paste
and kind of gone into the carpet.

So it's really set it in.
Set the stain, yeah.

Excellent. I'm glad my paste
made things worse!

But Laura's methylated spirit
has done the trick,

leaving her carpet
completely stain-free.

And if you're handling
methylated spirits at home,

it's advisable to wear
protective gloves.

Why does methylated spirits
work so brilliantly?

What they do is break up
the long fatty chains

of oils into smaller particles.

Methylated spirits are made of 90%
alcohol, which reacts with the oils.

The fat particles that are left over
by this reaction

are dissolvable in water contained
within the methylated spirits,

and that means it's much easier
to dab them up.

Next up - let's not cry over it -
here's a quick trick for spilt milk.

For liquid spills, remove as much
as possible from the surface

of the carpet, before you apply
your stain remover.

You get some kitchen towel and you
just dab very gently into the stain.

With milk, there is sometimes
a smell that comes from the stain.

Yes, it's incredibly stinky.

Milk contains odour-producing
bacteria,

which thrive at room temperature,

so they hang around in
the fibres of your carpet.

The best way to banish these
stinky stains is water

with a squirt of washing-up liquid.

But what temperature
should the water be?

I'm using lukewarm water,
that's about 37 degrees Celsius,

while Laura goes for hot water,
which is 50 degrees.

Urgh! So sorry to tell you this
Laura, I don't mean to be rude,

but yours is really stinky!

While my lukewarm water with
washing-up liquid has got rid of

the milk smell, Laura's hot
water has hardly worked at all,

so what's going on?

With hot temperatures,
the milk protein starts coagulating.

So when you heat milk
in a saucepan,

you might notice a thin film
forming on the surface.

That's exactly what's happening
in your carpet right now.

So for milk, make sure
the water's room temperature

with your washing-up liquid.

For the third and final test,

the ultimate nemesis of carpets
everywhere.

Red wine contains stain-causing
substances called tannins.

Oh, this feels so wrong! Argh!
Argh!

First, we're going to test
the two most popular

methods for banishing this most
epic of stains,

salt...

..and white wine.

Looking here, the salt doesn't work
and the white wine doesn't work.

No. Salt just permanently
sets your wine stain.

It makes it worse?!
It makes it worse. No!

Why does the white wine not work?

Well, white wine actually
also contains tannins,

so what you're essentially doing
is fighting the stain with a stain.

Tannins are also in white wine?
Yeah.

So what does work?

So we recommend that you use
a cleaning product

that contains oxygen-based
bleaching agents.

These specialist bleaches release
oxygen when exposed to water,

triggering a reaction which
transforms the tannins

into colourless compounds.

Unlike chlorine-bleach,
oxygen-based bleaches shouldn't

discolour your carpet, but always
test on an inconspicuous area first.

Finally, I have the definitive
answer on how to get rid of

the toughest stains out there.

But I'm not sure how useful it will
be cos I very rarely spill anything.

Back on the factory floor,
there's not a stain in sight.

My carpet's missing tufts
have been hand-sewn,

and it's passed inspection
with flying colours.

Now, my ten-metre roll,

containing 290,304 woollen tufts,

is transported across the factory
to Dispatch,

where it's deposited onto yet
another odd-looking carpet conveyor,

controlled by Pete Coath.

Hey!

Hello. Hi, Gregg.
Pete, right? Yeah, that's right.

That's a lot of kit.
But what are you doing with it?

Well, this is when your carpet
gets measured out

and cut to the desired length
that you've ordered.

And then the fitters can take it
away when it's delivered

and put it straight down, hopefully.

We've got ten metres
but we want two five-metre bits,

so... We're going to cut it in half.
We're going to cut it in half.

With the press of a button,
the conveyor is programmed

to measure out my carpet
to exactly five metres.

Magic carpet! There it is!

So the next thing would be
to cut it,

and we have a special knife,
which is this one.

It's on a roller,

and it fits into the groove
down here, just beside the carpet,

and then we push it along,

and it will cut the carpet
at the exact length. Is that right?

If you fancy a go, you'll actually
be cutting your own carpet off.

No, I'm really not.
I'd love to, but I'm really nervous.

No, don't be nervous. You can't get
it wrong, mate. You'll be all right.

Just walk it along?
Yep.

No. Oh, oh!
That's it. Now you're winning.

Whoa! Whoa!

GREGG LAUGHS

I'm cutting a carpet in half!

Oh, that's easy!
That knife must be really sharp.

Well, you're now the first person
to walk on your own carpet as well.

Shall I take my shoes off?
You can if you like.

Bounce up and down on it?
Yeah.

This is an opportunity
I can't pass up.

GREGG LAUGHS

MUSIC - The Nutcracker,
Dance Of The Mirlitons

I love this!

How does it feel, then, Gregg?
Nice and soft?

It's really nice and soft
and spongy. Yeah.

Like only a brand-new carpet can be.
Lovely.

But then we haven't spilt any
low sugar fruit drinks on it yet,

or any coffee or pints of beer.

That is my finished carpet.

My carpet is carried
along a conveyor,

where five motorised rollers
rotate to turn it into a roll.

Then it's sealed
and wrapped in brown parcel paper.

All that's left to do now
is put it on a van.

Is my carpet on there?

With a bit of luck, it will be
arriving in a second, mate.

Ah! A specially adapted forklift.
That's right. A carpet forklift.

Yeah.
Very clever.

So how do you explain our
love affair with our carpets?

Well, it's a luxurious thing
to have in your house.

It's fashionable because we change
the patterns all the time

for people.
And basically, the comfort.

Yeah, it is, isn't it? It's luxury.
It's warm, it's soft and it's cosy.

That's right, as you found out
walking on it.

Dancing on it!

So, once he's loaded that on,
are we done?

Yes, that will be it.

That's it. That's my carpet,
lovingly made, on its way.

Seven days, 16 hours and 15 minutes
after shearing my first sheep...

..my finished carpet
leaves the factory.

Every month, they send out
4,000 square metres of carpet

to shops and homes
around the UK and Ireland.

And rooms are kept cosy with
Axminster weaves as far afield

as America and Australia.

Before I came here,

I'd never imagined the effort
that goes into turning a fleece

from a fluffy sheep into a carefully
crafted carpet for our homes.

Every thread has been
thought through,

to make it hard-wearing,
stitch-perfect, and easy on the eye.

A bit like myself!

The factory has come a long way from
its first early assembly lines.

But how did we get
from there to here?

Explore the history
and the future of the factory

on an interactive timeline.

Go to...

..and follow the links
to the Open University.