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A grand carpet for the ballroom of the Grand Hotel
The majesty and grace of the ballroom at the Grand Hotel, one of Brighton’s most famous seaside landmarks, is now continued upon its floor with a bespoke carpet from Wilton Carpets Commercial.
Client Brief
Opened in 1864, the Grand Hotel is one of Brighton’s most famous buildings, with its Victorian architecture standing as a landmark on the seafront. The ballroom makes the most of the seaside location with a partial glazed façade. The design was based upon a carpet originally produced for another venue in the portfolio of the hotel’s operator De Vere Group, which had a requirement for a carpet that can withstand the demands of a busy function room, disguising spills and dirt throughout an event and proving hardwearing enough to endure regular intensive use.
Creative Approach
Unusually for a room coming under intensive use, the bespoke wool-rich axminster woven carpet features an uplifting warm base colour that helps to lift the rich tones used as accents within the pattern and which provides a bright feel in keeping with the hotel’s seaside location. The carpet throughout the ballroom gestures towards the heritage of the hotel with a bespoke Jacobean influenced pattern, given a contemporary feel with a large-scale pattern repeat that also balances well with the large floor space of the room.
“After some initial concepts, it was decided that an existing design would prove suitable for use in the ballroom but it was obvious that it would need to be adapted to suit the space,” explains Harriet Forde, Harriet Forde Design. “Working with the in-house design team at Wilton Carpets, we looked at the scale of the pattern and different colour combinations. The final design suits the scale of the ballroom and the colourway helps to ‘lift’ the room giving a majestic feel while also providing soil-hiding properties.”
Solution Delivered
With its durable 80% wool 20% nylon woven axminster construction, the carpet meets the De Vere Group’s requirement for a carpet that can withstand the demands of a busy function room, disguising spills and dirt throughout an event and proving hardwearing enough to endure regular intensive use. CFA accredited contractor Gravity Flooring installed the carpet, with the Middlesex-based company also providing accurate measurements of the space at the design stage to assist with planning the layout.
“The success of the design needed to be millimetre perfect,” comments Natalie Trumper, operations, Gravity Flooring. “As with any old building, the walls in the Grand are far from straight and so we even had to account for fluctuation here to stop the bordered design looking irregular. Wilton made the carpet to our exact measurements and requirements, so that when installed the carpet appears seamless and the border runs equidistant from all four walls and at all points in the room.”
