Little Greene are manufacturer of wallpaper and paint who draw their inspiration from classic periods of English interior design.
Their new paint range, ?Colours of England ? features colours from as far back as the classic Georgian era and as contemporary as the 1970s.
It?s a fascinating collection that has been authenticated by English Heritage as a true reflection of the colours used at the time and features the likes of Sky Blue, Drizzle, Woodbine and Rolling Fog, actually Rolling Fog is from their ?colour scales? collection.
You can tell this is a quintessentially English collection!
There are also some fantastic stories behind the colours. Lets take a short trip through time and explore a few of these wonderful colours.
From the Georgian period, Chocolate Colour is believed to have been the colour Frederick Handel and Benjamin Franklin had the front doors of their London pad?s painted.
The wonderfully named, Invisible Green was made popular by the landscape gardener Humphry Repton who recommended it for fencing and railings so that they would blend better with the background vegetation.
The Regency period Celestial Blue (a distant and dusky relative of Sky Blue) was found on a rare surviving paint card from 1807.
From the same period, Green Verditer. This green actually uses a pigment that is a by product of the silver refining process. Green Verditer was first used in the Book Room of Broughton House.
Moving on to the Victorian era, the wonderful Ashes of Rose is colour achieved by mixing primary red with secondary and loved by Victorians for its ?depth and discretion?. Portland Stone is just that ? the colour of Portland Stone which the Victorian?s used to paint the facades of their houses.
We arrive at the 1930s with Beauvais Lilac which is based on the colours of the royal factory, in Beauvais, Picardy.
But if one colour was to sum up the understated and enduring elegance of the 30s then it would have to be Eau-di-Nil.
Typical of the 50s, Orange Aurora was a very popular accent colour often used with Magnolia. Yes magnolia was a birth child of the 50s and has existed in various forms to this very day.
This magnolia went on to become that iconic off white.
On to the 60s!
Spearmint and Brighton were both used to create ?Eastern spaciousness? in Mervyn Seal?s iconic Butterfly Houses of the 1960s.
Finally we reach the signal colours of the 70s.
Purpleheart, the classic 70s purple used in any room and even recommended by architects Pini and Zerbi for entrance hall ceilings! The electric green of Phthalo Green which was championed in a 1971 edition of Ideal Home.
Let us not forget the hallmark orange of the 70s ? Marigold. One of the new spice colours of the period and used frequently with brown tones to create that classic 50s colour combination.
There you have it ? a brief historical run through the Colours of England ? there are 120 on our site for you to look through and enjoy ? it?s definitely more fun than looking out the window at the drizzle.
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