Pub carpets – don’t worry this isn’t turning into a pub version of Changing Rooms – merely observations one what makes a decent carpet in a pub. As noted below in discussion of The Ring, there is something comforting about a threadbare carpet in a pub. If you can see the underlay it means that the pub has not been refurbed for quite some time, and plenty of punters have used it. Which is – after all – the key point of the organic pub atmosphere, the pub has seen plenty of people.
Not all pubs have carpets of course. Indeed the idea of a carpet in a pub is akin to the idea of a carpet in a bathroom. Yes, it offers slightly more comfort and warmth but it is going to get grotty pretty quich is why there are pretty much two schools of thought in pub carpeting. Dark, neutral office type carpeting – often carpet tiles – which are very resilient and don’t noticeably get damaged easily. However this is not the norm. Instead the norm is a carpet which you would never in a million years countenance in your home. Red and green are the predominant colours, picking up a lot of dirt and with no discernable pattern except a decent ability to make you avert your eyes from the floor.
I saw easily the best pub carpet I had seen in some time yesterday on my travels . A swift pint in The Gun in Shoreditch – a less trendy alternative to the nearby Golden Hart. Beer was nice, the Heath Robinson-esque prints were diverting but the showpiece of this pub is its incredible carpet. Red and green like all good pub carpets, it was patterned with circular segments containt a picture of a cannon, or a gun. Now that is branding.