Brintons
Abbeyglen
Woven axminster · 5 plaid designs
Abbeyglen is Brintons' plaid range, five designs named after Irish counties — Leitrim, Wexford, Cavan, Tyrone and Fermanagh — in warm, softened colouring that sits well in an older house. It is a check rather than a carpet of motifs and scrollwork, which changes the rooms it suits and the way it is set out. Brintons were founded in Kidderminster in 1783.
Abbeyglen designs and colours
The repeat is not the same across all five. Leitrim works on a half-metre grid; Wexford is on a full metre both ways. That is a real difference on the floor and worth checking on the particular design you settle on rather than assuming the range figure covers it.
Click any swatch to see it larger.
A photograph of carpet on a screen is only ever a guide — wool takes colour differently to a monitor, and daylight in your own room changes it again. The samples are on display in the showroom, and we are happy to book one out for you to live with for a few days before you decide.
Specification
| Construction | Woven axminster |
|---|---|
| Pile content | 80% wool 20% nylon |
| Width | 4.00m (13' 1½") |
| Total pile weight | 1315 g/m2 (38.78 oz/yd2) — range figure |
| Tog | 1.62, sampled on Leitrim Plaid (a measure of thermal insulation, not of quality; it varies design to design) |
| Suitability | Extra Heavy Domestic |
Figures as published by Brintons, and some vary between designs in a range. Pattern repeat, match and the full technical specification are available on request — just ask, in the showroom or on the phone.
From the shop floor
What it’s like to live with
Squaring the grid
The pattern is a grid, and once down it reports how square your room is. Plenty of houses round here are not — a bay off by an inch over three metres, a chimney breast not quite parallel with the wall opposite. Decide before anything is cut which wall the grid squares to: usually the longest unbroken wall.
Leitrim's half metre, Wexford's metre
Leitrim works on a half-metre grid, Wexford on a full metre both ways. The smaller grid gives twice as many chances to land a line where you want it — below a stair nosing, level with a doorway — and keeps setting-out losses modest. All five are self match, so a seam means lining the grid up rather than dropping it half a repeat.
Worth knowing
The warm broken colouring hides what shows on a plain — the track down a hall, the patch in front of a favourite chair. Rated Extra Heavy Domestic, so a family hall, a snug or a dining room. Underlay wants to be firm rather than spongy under a woven back. Vacuum regularly, blot rather than rub.
Why it matters who lays it
Woven carpet is fitted differently
We have been selling Axminster from this shop for over sixty-five years, and our fitters are time-served men who work with woven carpet regularly rather than once in a blue moon.
That matters more than it used to. Something like ninety-five per cent of what goes down in British homes today is tufted, so a great many fitters have simply never had much woven carpet through their hands.
A woven carpet asks for things a tufted one does not. A pattern has to be set out on paper before anything is cut. A repeat has to be carried true up a flight of stairs and round a winder. Pile direction has to run the same way through every piece, or a single colour reads as two.
None of it is difficult for someone who does it week in and week out. All of it goes wrong in the hands of someone who does not.
You might also look at
Other Axminster ranges
Woven axminsterAbbotsfordSeven traditional colourways across three designs, small setts throughout.View the range
Woven AxminsterThe Chroma CollectionTen dyed neutrals in a lighter Axminster — Lace, Linen, Taffeta and more.View the range
Woven axminsterClassic Florals NouveauTwelve floral colourways across three designs, drawn large.View the rangeSee it
Scale is what a photograph cannot give you: at swatch size a check reads as a fine, quiet grid, but across a hall you see several repeats and it is much bolder. Stand back from a decent-sized piece on the displays at Lostock Hall, then we will book a sample out to set against your own skirtings, or bring samples to you and measure up.
See Abbeyglen in your own light
Woven carpet never reads correctly on a screen, and it rarely reads correctly under showroom lighting either. Come and look at the displays, then take a sample home with you — we are happy to book one out so you can live with it for a few days and see it against your own walls, at your own windows, morning and evening. If it is easier, we will bring samples out to you and measure up while we are there.
Book a free home visitVisit the showroom144–146 Brownedge Road, Lostock Hall, Preston PR5 5AE · 01772 336118 · Mon–Sat 10am–5pm · Free parking