New England Living is a UK based retail and wholesale distributor of hand hooked rugs by designer Claire Murray. Our rugs are sourced direct from Claire Murray in New England.

If you have any questions or require assistance, please call us on 0207 584 1424 or contact Kathryn Bartram, owner of New England Living, directly on 07990 510 121..

Claire’s exquisite area rug collections take us to the charming cottages of Nantucket, antique homes of coastal New England and the country's mountain retreats. Area rugs inspired by nature—beautiful coastal havens, fragrant gardens, Nantucket folklore and quaint, hometown places around the world.

Hand hooked rugs

The author William Winthrop Kent believed that the earliest forebears of hooked rugs were the floor mats made in Yorkshire, England during the early part of the 19th century. Workers in weaving mills were allowed to collect thrums, pieces of yarn that ran 9 inches (23 cm) long. These by-products were useless to the mill, and the weavers took them home and pulled the thrums through a backing. The origins of the word thrum are ancient, as Mr. Kent pointed out a reference in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. However in the publication "Rag Rug Making" by Jenni Stuart-Anderson, Stuart-Anderson states that the most recent research indicates "...the technique of hooking woolen loops through a base fabric was used by the Vikings, whose families probably brought it to Scotland." To add to this there are sound examples at the Folk Museum in Guernsey, Channel Islands that early rag rugs made in the same manner where produced here off the coast of France as well.

Rug hooking as we know it today may have developed in North America, specifically along the Eastern Seaboard in New England in the United States and the Canadian Maritimes. In its earliest years, rug hooking was a craft of poverty. The vogue for floor coverings in the United States came about after 1830 when factories produced machine-made carpets for the rich. Poor women began looking through their scrap bags for materials to employ in creating their own home-made floor coverings. Women employed whatever materials they had available. Girls from wealthy families were sent to school to learn embroidery and quilting; fashioning floor rugs and mats was never part of the curriculum. Another sign that hooking was the pastime of the poor is the fact that popular ladies magazines in the 19th century never wrote about rug hooking. It was considered a country craft in the days when the word country, used in this context, was derogatory. Today rug hooking or mat making as it is sometimes referred to has been labeled as a fine art.