Doncaster pub carpet number one in UK in book celebrating Britain's best Wetherspoons floor coverings

A Doncaster pub carpet has been described as one of the best in Britain in a new book packed with photos of floor coverings in Wetherspoon pubs.
Maltby's Queen's Hotel features in the book on Britain's best pub carpets.Maltby's Queen's Hotel features in the book on Britain's best pub carpets.
Maltby's Queen's Hotel features in the book on Britain's best pub carpets.

The Queen's Hotel in Maltby is just one of dozens of the chain's pubs across the UK to feature in Spoon's Carpets, a pictorial collection of some of the weird, wacky and colourful carpets the company has laid out at its bars across the country.

And author Kit Caless, who has travelled the length and breadth of Britain photographing Wetherspoon carpets has admitted his favourite deisgn is here in South Yorkshire.

The carpet at the Queen's Hotel, Maltby. (Photo: Kit Caless).The carpet at the Queen's Hotel, Maltby. (Photo: Kit Caless).
The carpet at the Queen's Hotel, Maltby. (Photo: Kit Caless).

He said: "My absolute fave is the Queen's Hotel in Maltby.

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"The town suffered a terrible tragedy in the 1920s when the mining pit collapsed, 27 men died, only one body was recovered. That same time, the Queen's Hotel opened, so it was a really difficult period for the community and the building.

"The mine closed and Maltby is no longer mining at all. The carpet is incredible in that it represents the life of that community in its design: there's pit shafts, pit ponies, the molecular structure of coal and all sorts in the design."

The pub also including a mural tapestry of a mine tunnel, a sculpture of cricketer Fred Trueman and an installation of South Yorkshire comic legends The Chuckle Brothers.

The Chuckle Brothers are also paid tribute to at the pub.The Chuckle Brothers are also paid tribute to at the pub.
The Chuckle Brothers are also paid tribute to at the pub.

He added: "It's basically mannequins dressed up as the Chuckle Brothers overlooking the pub from a closed-off balcony like the two old dudes in the Muppet Show, because they are from Maltby."

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Every single pub has its own unique design, colouring and history and no two carpets in the chain's 960 pubs are the same.

The carpets cost between £20,000 and £30,000 each and are partly hand-made by the renowned firm Axminster and are produced on old-fashioned looms.

He added: "I got drunk pretty much every day! I had at least a pint in each pub and visited over 100 in five weeks."

The book is available now.