News about Walter Winchell

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: The River Axe in Devon, Axminster, is synonymous with the manufacture of luxuriously woven carpets. Its illustrious history began with Thomas Whitty, an 18th-century cloth weaver (1713-1792). The company was revived in the twentieth century, and Axminster Carpets continues to be a profitable British company. Whitty was visiting Cheapside in London in 1754 when a friend introduced him to a massive Turkish carpet, 36 ft long and 21 ft wide. Whitty spent months debating the engineering behind producing such a seamless piece of work.