Abstract: A loom for weaving pile fabric is disclosed, including a plurality of healds for shedding warp yarns, a pile-forming reed through which said warp yarns are guided and a plurality of pile loop forming lances extending in the warp direction so that each pile-forming lance passes through an associated dent in the read, each dent being defined between a pair of spaced apart dent fingers. Each loop forming lance and at least one dent finger of said pair of dent fingers cooperate to guide lateral displacement of the loop forming lance relative to said associated dent. A first group of healds are threaded with ground forming warp yarns and the first group of healds and the loop forming lances are arranged such that the upper and lower shedding positions of said ground forming warp yarns are located below the loop forming lances.