On a hot Midsummer Day (June 21, 2005) eight jacketless managers from the Axminster Carpet company carried a new carpet, slung over four poles, through the streets from the United Reformed Church to the old factory, thence to the nearby church, where it was blessed, toward the end of a service led by the bishop of Exeter.

Also dedicated were two new bells, bringing the church's peal to ten. The overflow of the crowd had to be content with a relay screen in a marquee on the grass. The carpet, 5.75 meters long and 3.66 wide (about 19 by 12 feet), was a replica of Whitty's first Axminster carpet of 1755. But this time the machine made it in only two hours. It was actually one of four duplicates: one to go to the residence of Prince Charles at Clarence House in London, one to the British Museum, one to be auctioned at Christie's ("for maybe two and a half grand", someone told me), and one to be retained by the firm. Outside in the market triangle was a street market (rather different on this Tuesday from the usual Thursday market—more arts-crafts and charities). The day was part of a month-long festival called The Weavers' Tales, including historical plays and a children's street party and ending with Axminster Carpets versus Wilton Carpets at cricket.

The yarn for these carpets is dyed at Buckfastleigh (in the southeastern fringes of Dartmoor) before coming to Axminster's current factory, out on the southern side of town at Abbey Gate. Machinery passes the yarn down and up through the warp, then cuts it off as in an oriental pile rug, but, unlike those handmade rugs, there is no knot. However, female workers manually insert loops where the machine has occasionally missed them.