Two tanning businesses, the Bryant Leather Company and the Bristol tannery Gerrish & Gwyn, merged in the late 1950s to form Brymor, which began manufacturing heavy-duty wallcoverings for hotels and other commercial interiors. In 1998, Brymor began trading as Muraspec undergoing a rebrand rather than a change of hands – the name a merging of the French term for walls and specification.
Though no longer producing leather, high on the spire of the factory’s striking white HQ sits a weathervane topped with an iron cow balanced on a compass, a quiet nod to the tannery that once stood here. It is also, I am told, the only wallcovering manufacturer of its kind in the south-east; most UK competitors are based further north, which, paired with a fast rail link to London, makes East Peckham a convenient stop for specifiers wanting to see the full process – from first sketch to finished roll – in a single visit.
Upstairs, in the studio – officially, studio and product development – Hayes explained that around 80% of the work here is bespoke, developed in collaboration with clients rather than pulled from standard collections. A customer arrives with a starting point, sometimes no more than a mood or a reference image, and the studio develops concepts on spec, refining ideas until a design is approved for sampling. Hospitality remains by far the largest sector, a shift that accelerated as open-plan working reduced commercial wall space; healthcare has followed a similar path, with care environments increasingly designed to feel like the hotels they are trying to evoke.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on Hotel Designs.
