Roll out the Carpet Garden: Earlier this year a group of pupils from King Charles I School, Kidderminster came into the museum with their teacher Miss Mason. They were looking for ideas for their upcoming project on designing a garden based around the Carpet Industry in Kidderminster. They were planning to design a garden for the Malvern Show.

This is what one of the students had to say about the process:

Malvern School’s Garden Competition

Pupils from Year 9 and Year 10 studying Land and Environment and Life Skills courses are joining forces to enter the School’s Garden Challenge at this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Show. The theme of this year’s competition is ‘great moments in history’ and pupils have chosen Kidderminster’s carpet making past as the theme of their garden.
Pupils began their research by visiting Kidderminster’s Museum of Carpet in January 2014.
“We did this to see how carpets are made and to get ideas of how we can use the design of carpets to help us design similar patterns using plants.
When we arrived we were allowed to have a look around the museum before a museum guide showed us how a hand loom worked and we were able to see the carpet woven on the loom. The museum guide told us about the invention of the “flying shuttle” which meant that carpets could be made much quicker.
After this we then saw a loom that was originally driven by steam. It was huge and was very noisy when it was in use. We ended the morning by drawing carpet designs for our garden.” (Year 9 Life Skills class)
Pupils will now begin to grow the plants needed for their design and will present the garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Show which runs from 8-11 May at the Three Counties Showground.

We are sure that you will all agree that this is an amazing and imaginative effort by all involved. Well done King Charles I!