Oral tradition tells that John Brown travelled to Brussels, then to Tournai, where he persuaded a skilled weaver of Brussels carpets to return with him. Brown and the weaver secretly built a new loom in a house on Mount Skippet, but as they worked at night by candlelight, a spy paid by another manufacturer, watched night after night from the sky-light, and the new loom became common knowledge. In 1749, a partnership existed between John Pearsall and John Broom, and they built the first Brussels loom factory in Kidderminster at Caldwell Park Farm. In March 1749, a large factory was built on land leased on Mount Skippet, a two storey building, 150 ft. long, and housing 32 looms. This was a new development and Kidderminster rapidly expanded as a carpet weaving town.
