Brintons
Laura Ashley Collection by Brintons
Woven Axminster patterns with coordinating woven Wilton Bell Twist plains
The Laura Ashley collection is a coordinating system rather than a single carpet: woven Axminster patterns from the Laura Ashley archive — blossoms, stripes, scrolls and damasks in chambray, duck egg, truffle and faded gold — with Bell Twist plains in woven Wilton made to sit beside them. Both are 80/20 wool-rich and rated Extra Heavy Domestic. Brintons was founded in Kidderminster in 1783.
Laura Ashley designs and colours
Three Bell Twist plains are woven to coordinate with these patterns — Laura Ashley Duck Egg, Laura Ashley Cornish Grey and Steel. They sit on the Bell Twist page with the rest of that range.
A note on numbers, because it causes confusion. Brintons' own range description for this collection says it comprises 12 Axminster designs alongside 4 Bell Twist plains. The range page as it currently stands lists eleven products: eight patterned colourways across five designs — Iona, Annecy, Winchester, Malmaison and Woodville — plus three plains. Some designs are shown in more than one colourway and some are not shown at all, so treat both figures as a guide and ask us what can actually be got hold of before you settle on one.
Click any swatch to see it larger.
Annecy 2 colourways
Malmaison 2 colourways
Woodville 2 colourways
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
| Patterned Axminster designs | |
|---|---|
| Construction | Woven axminster |
| Pile | 80% wool 20% nylon |
| Width | 4.00m (13' 1½") |
| Total pile weight | 1359 g/m2 (40.08 oz/yd2) |
| Tog | 2.01 — sampled on Iona Duck Egg and Winchester Gold; Brintons publish tog per product and it can vary between them. Tog measures thermal insulation, not quality |
| Suitability | Extra Heavy Domestic |
| Bell Twist plains | |
| Construction | Woven wilton |
| Pile | 80% wool 20% nylon |
| Widths | 1.00m (39¼"), 2.00m (6' 6¾"), 3.00m (9' 10"), 4.00m (13' 1½"), 4.57m (15' 0") |
| Total pile weight | 1359 g/m2 (40.08 oz/yd2) |
| Tog | 1.39 — sampled on Steel and Laura Ashley Duck Egg; can vary by product |
| 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
Pattern in the regular rooms, plain in the awkward ones
The Axminsters come in 4.00m only. The Bell Twist plains come in five widths down to 1.00m, so the plain is the flexible half of the partnership: it will take a narrow landing, an awkward box room or a stair flight without a seam, where the pattern will not.
The repeats vary a great deal by design
Iona Duck Egg repeats 0.95m down and 0.67m across on a half drop, so the pattern steps sideways as it runs and every stair piece has to be cut to keep the line true. Winchester Gold repeats 0.93m down but 4.00m across — the design crosses the full width before it starts again, and looks intentional only when it is centred.
Worth knowing
Pattern and plain share the same blend and the same 1,359 g/m2 of pile, so they wear and age at a similar rate — which matters at a doorway, where a pattern from one maker and a plain from another go different ways within a few years. Expect more offcut than a plain, and the same grade of quality branded UK-made underlay on both sides of a threshold.
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 Designer Collections ranges
See it
Coordinating two carpets is the one thing a screen cannot help with: the question is how a pattern and a plain look side by side in the same light. We can stand them together on the displays at Lostock Hall, then book both samples out so you can lay them in the actual doorway — or bring the pair to you and measure up.
See Laura Ashley Collection by Brintons 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