Palace to Paper: The Royal Influences behind Cole & Son's Wallpaper Designs

If only walls could talk. Especially those hung with the exquisite patterns of British wallpaper design house Cole & Son. At the 149-year-old Royal Warrant holder’s company’s archive, centuries-old printing blocks and row upon row of commission logs are testament to the role Cole & Son has played in some of the most important decorating schemes of the past two centuries. From stately homes such as Chatsworth House, Blickling Hall and Audley End to the royal residences of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace, these exquisite spaces have been witness to history, and more often than not, a Cole & Son wallpaper has provided the decorative backdrop.

Cole & Son’s origins date back to 1875, when John Perry, the son of a Cambridgeshire merchant, opened a hand-block printing business in a wallpaper mill in Islington. Perry revived the art of hand flocking (the late 18th-century Dutch process of imitating cut velvet) and developed a process for using ground mica to create a lustre-like silk effect on paper.

Walls papered with a Royal Warrant

Following his death in 1940, Perry’s family sold the company to A. Cole, a successful wallpaper merchant, who then formed an alliance with Albert and Lionel Hill to become Cole & Hill. As one of the UK’s first screen printing studios, they produced papers for the 1951 Festival of Britain before rebranding the company as the Cole & Son we know today.

The company’s new, light-filled, three-storey HQ is located in a handsome, late 19th-century building in Jubilee Place, just off the King’s Road. It’s a design lover’s wonderland with colour, pattern, fantasy and drama at every turn. In the welcoming ground floor gallery and VIP library, the company’s Royal Warrant, carved large and painted in wood, is proudly displayed, while up and down the many stairwells, and across each of the brand’s upper floor offices, the Cole & Son interior design pedigree is unmistakable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the office of Creative and Managing Director Marie Karlsson, which is swathed in vibrant magenta and blush-pink lilacs, counterbalanced  by a moody shade of charcoal.

A word from the Creative Director

The building has been the perfect setting for Karlsson and her team to hang pictures of some of its most successful designs, showchasing the iconic ‘heroes’ of the collection. For a company with such a proud heritage, you can imagine Karlsson’s great delight when she recently discovered the building had not only once been home to a wallpaper company, Knowles & Co., but it was in fact the very place Cole had learned his trade as a wallpaper printer. “His grandson (now in his 90s) sent me an email to tell me. He was very emotional,” says Karlsson. Now it is her aim to make Jubilee Place “a destination in the world for wallpaper,” she enthuses.

“I want it to be a space where not only architects and interior designers are welcome, but anyone who wants to play with wallpaper. To give them somewhere to simply sit and enjoy what they see,” she says of the walls lined with fleeting clouds and climbing monkeys, delicate chinoiseries and vibrant jungle scenes. She is clearly passionate about this new phase. “Wallpaper is such an important part of English history and as custodians of that, Cole & Son needs to bring it to the future,” she stresses. “We really need to show new generations how much fun it can be to use it in their homes.”

Since taking the helm of Cole & Son, Karlsson has embraced its historical connections to some of the country’s grandest buildings. At the company’s warehouse in North London, there is a vast space dedicated to preserving the archive of thousands of carved wooden blocks and engraved cylinders.

Centuries of prints, one block

Many blocks are stained in faded shades of rose, tomato red, pistachio and sky blue after centuries of use. One notable set, belonging to the Tudor Rose pattern, was printed for the eminent walls of the Houses of Parliament, the finishing flourish to Augustus Pugin’s Gothic scheme. Collectively, it is a fascinating insight into the history of our country’s decorative arts. “Great Britain has always played such a key role in leading interior design trends and wallpaper is deeply embedded in that culture, in our genes,” Karlsson asserts.

Another block shows the markings of an 18th-century damask which inspired the modern-day ‘Balabina’ (named after the Kirov Ballet ballerina Feya Balabina), reworked by the design team to incorporate a beautifully drawn bird within the pattern. ‘Hummingbirds’, based on an 18th-century design Perry acquired from Cowtan & Sons, can be seen in a set of blocks where tiny details of wing and beak have been hand-carved into one pearwood block (a wood chosen for its malleability and longevity), while the shapes of leaves and twigs have been carved into another.

“It shows you how a design made up of between 23 to 27 colours, created through a combination of wood blocks and handpainted elements, is built up, layer by layer,” Karlsson explains. For this season, the team has reimagined it with a trail of nectar flowers and flitting butterflies, injected with contemporary shades such as racing green, fuchsia, buttercup yellow and cornflower blue. Today, the design team stays true to the tradition of how Cole & Son has always produced its sought-after designs. “We handpaint everything first, sometimes spending months perfecting a design because it is instrumental in lending a pattern movement and depth, before transferring it into digital format,” she explains. “Everything we create is original.”

Masters in Sustainability

Cole & Son produces almost 80% of its wallpapers in the UK. Sustainability is an increasing priority, especially in its recent collaboration with Stella McCartney, which uses new eco-friendly substrates derived from 79% renewable fibres and produced using 30% less greenhouse gases than traditional non-woven wall coverings. “It’s a real strength for us,” says Karlsson. “We will always continue to be an ambassador for ‘Made in Britain’." In homage to Cole & Son’s Royal Warrant, granted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1961, the brand has a long-standing collaboration with Historic Royal Palaces. “We try to look at the rooms in places like Hampton Court, Kew and Kensington Palace, the Tower of London and Banqueting House in a different way. We respect their history but want to infuse our designs with some quirk that makes it interesting for the modern house,” she says.

Among the designs in the Great Masters Collection is the finely detailed tapestry of florals in ‘Court Embroidery’, emulating the needlework of an early 19th-century courtier’s waistcoat found in the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection; while the dancing figures, delicate foliage and ripened fruits in ‘Chamber Angels’ draw from the carousel-style structure found on the ceiling of The Presence Chamber, part of the King’s State Apartments at Kensington Palace. Originally designed by William Kent (one of the most influential names in early 18th-century design), it vividly captures the essence of an ebullient room where the king entertained and received ministers and foreign ambassadors.

From Hampton Court to Kew and Beyond

‘Hampton Roses’ is a celebration of the flower now synonymous with the Tudor era of Hampton Court Palace and ‘Gibbons Carving’ draws from the high-relief wooden carvings of the 17th-century master carver Grinling Gibbons, whose talents and originality led to royal patronage under Charles II, first at Windsor Castle and later as the King’s Master Carver from 1693. ‘Royal Jardinière’ depicts one of King William lll and Queen Mary ll’s blossoming orange trees, while ‘Palace Tales’ is an exuberant graphic repeat, incorporating the Tower of London’s ravens, the fallow deer roaming free in Hampton Court Palace’s gardens, and a polar bear swimming along the River Thames (one of the exotic beasts kept by Henry III in his Royal Menagerie).

“We will continue to work with Historic Royal Palaces because it’s important for us to bring the beauty of all those incredible tapestries, architectural details and breathtaking gardens found in each of the palaces into people’s everyday lives,” Karlsson enthuses. Meanwhile, the connections to  modern monarchs continued in 2022 when Cole & Son  produced a special edition of ‘Idyll’ – a lavish English landscape panoramic, complete with rolling hills, abundant rose bushes, proud peacocks, and ancient oaks and yews. The shimmering platinum background was chosen in celebration of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee year.

“We are so proud of our warrant because it is special,”  says Karlsson. “While we were appointed by the late Queen Elizabeth II, Cole & Son served the Royal Palaces long before. In fact, it took Cole & Son almost 75 years to get their warrant,” she muses. For Karlsson, the Royal Warrant implies a level of world-class quality. “Around the world, it is a massive stamp of approval for how we produce our wallpapers. It clearly says we are the best of the best,” she beams proudly.

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