Sanderson Rugs: English Florals, Archive Prints and Woodland Scenes Underfoot

Few names are as closely tied to the English home as Sanderson. Founded in 1860, the brand built its reputation on fabrics and wallpapers drawn from an extensive archive of documents, and that archive is the starting point for its rugs too. Made under licence by Brink & Campman, the collection takes designs that many people already know from curtains and walls and reworks them at floor scale. We introduced Sanderson alongside two sister brands in our feature on Harlequin, Sanderson and Scion; here we look at the collection on its own. Browse the full Sanderson collection.

The great English florals

Flowers are the heart of Sanderson, and the rug collection has several of its best-loved bouquets.

• Rose & Peony. A heady array of blooms from the British summer garden and one of the brand's most enduring designs. Red is the boldest of the three colourways, Cerise the brightest, and Birch the quietest: a soft neutral ground with the flowers in muted tones, combining cut and loop pile so the blooms stand in relief. From across the room it reads almost as a textured neutral.
• Stapleton Park. A large-scale bouquet of roses, peonies and trailing foliage in painterly detail. Navy/Burnt Orange sets rust, apricot and cream flowers against deep navy; Rosewood takes the design warm, through dusky pinks.
• Dahlia & Rosehip. Big dahlia heads, rosehips and trailing leaves gathered into loose bouquets. In Teal, coral, pink and cream flowers glow against a deep teal ground.

Woodland and landscape

Some of the most atmospheric pieces in the collection look to trees rather than flowers.

• Ancient Canopy. An impressionist woodland scene of old trees with bowing branches, drawing the eye through to a glade beyond. It reads as landscape rather than pattern, and the Forest Green colourway behaves almost like a dark pool in a well-lit room.
• Robin's Wood. An all-over scatter of oak and sycamore leaves drawn from a Sanderson archive document. Russet Brown leans into autumn, with carved edges that lift each leaf away from the ground; Forest Green is the cooler alternative.
• Shalimar. A tree of life, full of trailing flora and fauna. Held to a single family of China Blue tones, it is the most narrative design in the range and rewards a room where people sit still.

Pattern from further afield

The archive is not only English. Anaar, from the Hindi word for pomegranate, sets stylised fruit into a repeating stripe, botanical and geometric at once. Anthos is drawn from an Uzbekistani suzani document and, unusually for the collection, is a jacquard weave of PET and wool with a flatter, more defined surface that suits a dining room or hallway. Jackfruit sets stylised fruit against a contrasting ground, and Linnean is framed by a playful key-fret border, worked in cut and loop pile so the edge reads as a distinct band.

How the rugs are made

• Hand-tufted wool: most of the indoor designs are hand-tufted with a cut pile in pure new wool, some with viscose to add lustre to the paler elements.
• Flatweaves: Matmi, a small-scale geometric, is woven on a jacquard loom as a thin flatweave of about 3 mm, so it sits flat under doors and furniture.
• Indoor/outdoor: Dandelion Clocks, Manila, Calathea, Kasuri and Truffle are tufted from yarn spun from recycled PET bottles, for terraces, garden rooms and busy back hallways. See all our outdoor rugs.
• Sizes: most designs come in four standard sizes from 200 x 140 cm to 350 x 250 cm, with special sizes available to order. Our custom and made-to-order rugs explain more.

Styling Sanderson

Let the rug lead in a plain room. A large floral such as Stapleton Park is happiest with plain walls and upholstery that pick out one of its colours.

Choose the quieter colourway with patterned fabrics. If you already have Sanderson curtains or wallpaper, Rose & Peony in Birch or Anaar in Flax will sit beneath them without argument.

Think about the architecture. English florals and archive designs feel especially at home in older houses; our guide to rugs for period properties has more ideas.

A decorator's note

Sanderson rugs work best when they are chosen as part of the whole scheme rather than as an afterthought, particularly if you are coordinating with the brand's fabrics or wallpapers. If you would like help choosing a design, colourway or size, send our team a photograph of your room and a note of your other furnishings, and we will gladly advise.