Ulster Carpets
Athenia
Woven Axminster · 15 designs, including runners
Athenia is Ulster's small-pattern Axminster: fifteen designs in three formats — a Motif, a Pindot and a stair Runner — woven in an 80% wool, 20% nylon blend at Ulster's Portadown mill. The appeal is scale. The pattern is quiet enough to live with anywhere, and small enough that very little carpet is lost bringing it back into line.
Athenia designs and colours
Stair runners are part of the range, so the stairs can carry the same figure as the rooms.
Click any swatch to see it larger.
Motif 5 colourways
Pindot 5 colourways
Runner 5 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
| Construction | Woven Axminster |
|---|---|
| Pile content | 80% wool, 20% nylon |
| Available widths | 4.57m (15'), 3.66m (12'), 2.74m (9'), 1.83m (6'), 0.91m (3') |
| Tog rating | 1.7 |
| Suitability | Heavy wear |
| Moth proofing | Moth proof |
| Designs | 15 |
Figures as published by Ulster Carpets, 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
Where a small pattern works
A box room, a study, a narrow hall, a landing broken up by four doorways — these are places where a large motif ends up half-cut against every skirting. A small motif or a pindot carries on to the edge and reads as a texture, so the room looks bigger rather than busier.
Setting out, and the stairs
Motif Green is measured at 28cm, so the pattern comes back into line quickly and the offcuts left at every join are small. On a straight flight it comes round within a couple of treads; on winders a small self-match figure simply carries on round the turn. Repeats vary by design, so we confirm the figure before setting out.
Worth knowing
Athenia is classified for heavy wear rather than extra heavy. For most bedrooms, landings, dining rooms and ordinary halls that is ample; if your hall is the route in from a working farm or a building trade, we would steer you to an extra heavy wear range instead. At 80% wool the pile recovers well and the pattern hides day-to-day marking.
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 AxminsterAnatoliaTraditional oriental medallions and scrolls, with matching 27in stair runners.View the range
Woven AxminsterBeaumontA single plaid design in ten colourways, from chalk through to deep grouse.View the range
Woven AxminsterBlossomA single delicate oriental floral, in Camellia and Opal.View the rangeSee it
Small patterns photograph badly — a pindot disappears on a screen and looks like a plain. The displays at Lostock Hall show it at full size, and we will book a piece out to take home, because a small figure changes character again in your own light. Or we will bring the samples to you and measure up free of charge.
See Athenia 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