Ulster Carpets
Ulster Velvet
Woven Wilton · 32 colours
Ulster Velvet is the other plain Wilton we stock, and the difference from York Wilton is the finish: a smooth, dense pile woven in Portadown, with no texture at all. Thirty-two colours, richer and more saturated than the York palette — Imperial Red, Burgundy, Royal Blue, Jade. It is the carpet for a dining room, or a staircase you want to make something of.
Ulster Velvet designs and colours
There are no runner widths in this range — the narrowest is 3m.
Click any swatch to see it larger.
Show the other 20 swatches
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 Wilton |
|---|---|
| Pile | 80% wool / 20% nylon |
| Widths | 5m (16'5"), 4m (13'1"), 3m (9'10") |
| Tog | 1.5 (a measure of thermal insulation, not of quality) |
| Suitability | Extra heavy wear |
| Moth | Moth proof |
| Colours | 32 |
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
Shading is the thing to decide first
A smooth, dense pile shows footprints, vacuum lines and patches of light and dark where it has been walked one way then another. That is not a fault and not wear — it is what a velvet pile does. Plenty of people think it half the point; others find it maddening. If it would bother you, a heather in York Wilton or a textured loop is the honest alternative.
Pile direction down a flight
Every piece has to run the same way. Set one tread the other way round and it reads as a different shade from those above and below it — same colour, same batch, ordinary daylight, and no fixing it afterwards. The same holds across a seam: on a velvet the pile decides where a join can go.
Where it works
A dining room or a formal sitting room, where the floor is mostly looked at and the depth of colour is something a textured carpet will not give you. Rated extra heavy wear, so a staircase is well within it. Three widths only — 5m, 4m and 3m — so there is no runner width and a wide room needs a seam.
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.
See it
Colour this saturated needs daylight, and shading needs a decent-sized piece rather than a swatch — a showroom light comes from one direction where a room gets two or three. The displays are at Lostock Hall, and we will book a sample out so you can watch the footprints come and go, or bring samples to you and measure up at no charge.
See Ulster Velvet 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