The Carpet Museum Trust was founded in 1981 with the aim of ?establishing a public museum ? for the exhibition of items of local historical and educational interest and in particular in any way connected with the manufacture of carpets and similar textiles?. Following the boom years of the 1960?s, the carpet industry ? for over a century the principal employer in Kidderminster ? was beginning to decline.
As the industry shrank, the Trust began to collect machinery, artefacts, archives and libraries from the numerous firms in the town. Before long, the Trust had acquired a good collection of machinery, including many items that showed the important stages in the technical development of carpet making as well as a large archive of ledgers, board minutes, deeds, and accounts acquired from many of the companies around the town.
The Trust also acquired a collection of around 3000 carpet designs, many by significant designers such as Charles Voysey, Edouard Glorget and Bernat Klein. The samples of rugs and carpets illustrate most of the types of carpets, the different fibres and dyes, and the changing styles of design.