Victorian Tiles

Victorian tiles belong to a small group of decorative styles in this country that have never gone out of fashion. The floors and walls the Victorians laid in halls, porches, kitchens and bathrooms were made to a standard that means plenty of them are still down, still in use, and still holding their colour a hundred and fifty years on.

The style grew out of the industrial confidence of the period, when machine pressing and reliable clay bodies made it possible to produce tiles in consistent shapes and tones at scale for the first time. Floor tiles were left unglazed and coloured through the body, which is why a Victorian hall floor can be worn for a century and still hold its colour. Encaustic designs take this further, with contrasting clays inlaid so the pattern runs deep into the tile itself.

A geometric floor is built from a field pattern, a border and corner pieces that turn it cleanly, while on the wall, glazed brick tiles, now more often called metro, sit alongside transfer-printed and relief-moulded details. Both halves of the style work as well in a period property as they do bringing pattern and permanence into a plain modern room, and our curated range spans both sides of it.