All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S08E10.Paint.and.Wallpaper.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-VTM_track3_[eng]

There can come a time when our homes
start to look a bit scruffy.

But redecorating can make all
the difference.

And even if you aren't the most
handy at DIY...

..lots of us have picked up a brush
or a roller to give it a go.

As a nation, we spend £21 billion
on renovations every year.

When you're sprucing up your home,

you can't go far wrong than
wallpaper and a lick of paint.

So I've come to a factory that's
been making them since 1967!

I'm Gregg Wallace...

Whoa!

..and tonight,
I'll be mixing it up with paint.

Whoa!

I reckon I could get five grand for
that in some galleries!

And luxuriating in golden
wallpaper.

Whoa! Look at that!

I'm Cherry Healey...

Yes!

..and I'm unravelling the secret of
wallpaper hanging...

Oh, I bet you're good at jigsaws.

..and I'm having a blast...

Avalanche! Woo-hoo!

..mining the ingredients for paint.

I kind of feel like we're on the
moon!

And historian Ruth Goodman...

Whoa!

..reveals the secrets of painted
warships.

Instead of seeing the ship they're
expecting, they're seeing a wreck.

This factory makes up
to 200,000 litres of paint

and 10,000 metres of wallpaper

every single week.

And I'm going to reveal just
how they do it.

Welcome to Inside the Factory!

This is the Farrow and Ball factory
in Dorset,

where they make more than 270
different colours of paint.

And their grand wallpaper
comes in over 1,500 designs

and colour combinations...

Scaling up traditional hand-crafted
techniques

with cleverly engineered machines.

Carefully produced by a close-knit
team of 177 local workers,

the factory's wallpaper and paint
are designed to go together

like strawberries and cream!

I'm following production
of their two best sellers,

their Estate emulsion paint in pink,

and their Lotus patterned wallpaper.

And I'm starting with paint
making...

..which begins under the Dorset
sunshine

with a delivery at Intake...

What a lovely day.

..where production manager Simon
Downey is already busy unloading.

Simon? Hi Gregg, how you doing?
Good to meet you.

Is this good paint making weather?
This is good paint making weather.

I just realised on the drive down,
you know,

I have absolutely no idea at all how
you make a tin of paint.

So what sort of paint are we going
to be making?

So we're going to be making a
standard emulsion batch paint today.

It's an emulsion, that's what
we're making?

Yeah an emulsion is basically
a decorative paint,

so it's the kind of paint you would
use on your walls, on your ceilings,

and it's a very flat, sort of
chalky paint.

OK, OK.

You've got water, and then you
put in all your ingredients

into that water and you want to make
sure that they're all held together,

so by the time you've got paint
at the end of it,

it's all going to work and nothing
is going to kind of fall out of it

or float to the top. Perfectly
blended. Yes.

Oh, it's going to be
interesting, this.

A key ingredient for my emulsion
paint is calcium carbonate,

better known as chalk!

Oh, it's sticking,
it's not rubbing off.

That's going to absorb into
the water,

and then that will run
through your paint film then.

What's particular about this paint?
What sort of finish do you get?

So you're going to get a matt
smooth finish from it with

this kind of paint. A matt finish,
is that a duller finish?

That is, yeah.
So why would we want that?

The shinier it is, the more likely
you are to see blemishes

and things on the wall,

and light's going to reflect off it
differently and unevenly.

Whereas you've got a matt finish,

it's quite flat, so light won't
reflect off it.

Wow! OK.

And is it the chalk in there that's
making your matt even more matt?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

As 21 pallets of chalk is unloaded,
my paint production begins.

They get through 500 bags
of the stuff a week.

Another important component is
china clay,

which adds bulk to the paint,

helping it hide blemishes
on your wall.

This batch is from America - but
it's also mined closer to home.

Cherry has been getting a bird's-eye
view of where it comes from.

This extraordinary landscape
is in the south-west of England,

home to Britain's second biggest
mineral export, china clay.

I've come to Headen Quarry in Devon,
to get a closer look.

Stretching a mile wide,

this is one of the biggest china
clay mines in Europe.

Site Manager James Tupman has been
working these hills

since he left school.

Hi, James, lovely to meet you.

Hi, Cherry. What an incredible
lunar landscape.

I kind of feel like we're on
the moon.

Yeah, it's definitely different.

What exactly is china clay?

China clay is granite
that has been weathered.

So, millions of years ago,
lava came up underneath Dartmoor

and created a big granite mass.

So, this is a piece of weathered
granite.

It's a soup of different minerals,

and the white stuff is the
china clay.

Like most cooled molten rock,
granite is a mix of minerals.

Minerals are naturally occurring
solids

with a known crystal structure.

In this case, rainwater seeped
deep down into the earth,

and reacted with the granite,

creating a new mineral called
kaolinite.

Traditionally used in Chinese
porcelain,

it became commonly known as
china clay.

The clay makes up
just 15% of the granite,

so this massive process is
to extract it from everything else.

First, 75-tonne diggers claw
the rock out off the ground...

..before it's driven to an area
of the quarry

with a high-pressure water hose.

What on earth?

The hose is controlled from what
looks like a gamer's chair -

except this is no game!

These controls here control
the high-pressure water hose.

Oh, my God. Are you allowing me to
take control?

Well, if you feel up to it,
you can have a go.

So, what you want to do is you want
to wash the bottom of the pile.

If you wash too high,
we choke the whole plant up,

which we don't want to do.

Ooh.

God, it's really sensitive.

Avalanche! Avalanche!

Woo-hoo! Ooh, that was a big one.

The pressure coming out of this
nozzle is around 200 PSI,

which is the equivalent of being
400 foot below the ocean.

I would not want to
stand in front of that hose.

Why are you blast washing
this mound of rock?

China clay is very fine,

and the rock it's contained
within is very coarse.

So, we're just washing that fine
china clay

right out of the rock, with
a few of the other minerals.

More than 100 litres of water are
fired from the cannon every second!

It's onsite rainwater, and once it's
been blasted by the canons,

it's pumped back up again, to be
re-used in a continuous cycle.

In just one hour,

around 30 tonnes of china clay are
washed out of 200 tonnes of rock.

It creates a white slurry,

a mix of water and the lighter
materials,

which flows half a mile down the
man-made slope into a pool.

From here, the slurry is pumped into
the Headon Refinery...

..where a sieve removes rocks
and vegetation.

But the china clay remains within
the murky water,

and to extract it, they must first
take out the smaller impurities,

and that requires some more
complex machinery.

They're like giant, scary spiders.

What is going on in here?

So, what happens is the china clay
slurry gets fed into this

system, and it works a little
bit like a cyclone vacuum cleaner,

to really fire out those
particles that we don't want. Right.

So those are bits like any quartz
that's left behind,

and another mineral called mica.

Mica and quartz are minerals
like china clay,

but their particles are
much heavier.

As the slurry is spun around at high
speed, they fall to the bottom,

and are discarded through waste
pipes, along with any sand.

Why do you need to take the mica
and the quartz and the sand out?

What we're after is the really
fine china clay.

The mica and the sand is quite
coarse, and your paint would almost

have a sand texture on your wall,
which is not what you're after.

The liquid that leaves these
machines is still 90% water

and only 10% china clay.

To be suitable for paint production,
that ratio must be almost reversed!

Ooh, look at this!

So, this is a massive press.

The clay is pumped in under
high pressure.

These filter cloths, they retain
the clay,

and the water passes its way through
those cloths and is recycled.

And then this whole machine squeezes
all of the water out.

The clay stays behind,

and we're left with something
a bit like a cake.

So, you've got the clay left
and most of the water's gone.

Well, how do you get it out the
machine?

We need to open up each one of these
plates and drop out that cake.

And what we do, is we use a little
bit of hand work.

A stick? A stick.

That is truly high-tech.

Stand well back.

Wait. I'm going in.

All in one.

Yeah!

But before the clay can leave
the refinery,

yet more water needs to be removed.

So, it's extruded into pellets,

and passed through a machine that
blasts it with hot air

at 400 degrees Celsius,

reducing the moisture content
to 14%.

Every year, they produce hundreds
of thousands of tonnes

of pure white china clay.

Well, you've saved the best
till last -

look at this magical winter
wonderland. Yeah, that's right.

Is this the china that's now going
to go out into the world?

So, this china clay is now finished

and ready for dispatch or
further processing.

And it's got that very white
finish now

that you're looking for in the
paint.

From here, the clay is sent to a
specialised processing plant,

where it's baked into a powder,

ready to be made into
emulsion paint.

Nestled in the Dorset countryside,

the factory is all set to
make my batch of paint.

So, me and Simon are following 40
bags of china clay,

along with 25 bags of chalk ...

..to Mixing.

Don't you think you could've painted
this a brighter colour?

So, Gregg, this is one of our
manufacturing vessels

where we make the matt
emulsion paint.

Is it as simple as you are throwing
everything into that pot?

I like to think of it
more like cooking.

So this would be one of our recipes.

What colour? It's going to be just
white.

This is just the manufacture
of the base paint at this moment.

There'll actually be no
colouring in it.

But we will add colour to it later?
We will add colour to it later.

What does it start with?
So, it always starts with water.

Where does your water come from?

We use mains water,

but mains water has got little
kind of microbes in it.

They're perfectly harmless,
but once you add them to paint,

they can grow within the paint

and they will start to eat some of
the key ingredients that are in it.

1,000 litres of water is
added to the mixer -

sterilised with a disinfectant.

One moment.

Am I right in thinking
the water out the tap

is clean enough for us to drink...
Yes.

..but not clean enough for you to
make paint? Exactly.

What other liquid
ingredients go in there?

So we're going to put a wetting
agent in there.

How many litres have you
got of the wetting agent?

About 75 to 100 litres.

That's like a tablespoon
in our soup mix. Yeah.

What does that do?

That will make sure that the paint
stays wet when you're applying it,

so it won't dry on the brush
or on the roller,

and will also stay wet
within the tin.

And this one, this is our
dispersant.

The dispersant. How much of that's
going in?

Twice that amount there is going in.

And that obviously is
an enormous drum of honey.

Wouldn't eat it. And that is going
to help all those powders

and all those ingredients break out
into the paint,

and make sure that it's evenly
distributed

so we don't get lumps and bumps
everywhere.

So that keeps the ingredients
blended together? Yeah.

You want to make sure you can
keep it all together,

and it's not going to separate,
either rise or sink to the bottom.

Why, when I open tin of paint,
and there's like a clear liquid,

like a head of a beer
on the top of it?

Cheaper paints, you'll find
that there is a 30 to 40% solids

within paint, and they're always
trying to drop back out again.

In cookery terms, it's split.
Exactly that.

The liquid's come to the top. Yeah.

And that's why we then run around
the garden,

looking for a stick to stir it
with. Yeah.

And then we have to put
a stick on the lid of the paint

because we can't put
it on the patio floor.

And then you make a mess everywhere.
Yeah, that's it, isn't it?

Start the mixer up.
Press that middle button.

And then all we're going to
do... tip them in.

I add the wetting agent chemical...

Wahey!

..which slows the evaporation
rate of water.

And then the dispersant,

which will help powder particles
mix evenly throughout the liquid.

All done. Great.

We use a sort of relatively soft
propeller

that's going to incorporate all
those liquids gently.

No heat under that. No.

It's like a gentle stir. Yes.

The paddles blend the liquids
together for ten minutes,

at 100 rotations a minute.

Now we've got our wet liquids in,

we can then move on to the
dry powders.

Over to the right here,
we've got the china clay,

we've got the chalk,

we've also got our titanium
dioxide as well.

What is that?

So this is titanium dioxide.

It's going to turn things white.

That's what its job is,
because it's the whitest

and brightest of the pigments
that you can use.

It goes into things like
paracetamol, sun cream,

even toothpaste.

Do you know where it comes from?

So titanium dioxide is a naturally
occurring pigment.

It's mined all around the world,

but we get a very specific
grade from Holland.

Dutch titanium.
It's Dutch titanium.

It's Dutch Titanium.

We both said it now, that makes it
double Dutch.

Each 25 kilo bag of fine dry powder

is carefully added into the
5,100-litre mixer.

This brilliant white
creates the base paint

for most of the coloured
emulsions made in the factory.

A total of 55 bags
of titanium dioxide...

40 bags of china clay,

and 25 bags of chalk are added to
the mix over the course of an hour.

The key to creating a consistent
paint is the high shear dispersion

blade, which spins at 1,500
rotations a minute.

That's three times faster
than your average helicopter blade!

As it spins, a vortex is created.

This sucks the liquid, along with
the powders, downwards.

The fast-spinning blade forces
the liquid and powders

to collide at high speed,

reducing the particle size of the
powders...

..and dispersing them evenly.

The dispersant we added earlier
ensures the powders remain

perfectly suspended in the liquid
and won't sink to the bottom.

So Gregg, now we're going to add
a resin.

That resin, it looks like that.

In a 5,000-litre batch of paint,
how much resin we putting in?

Well over 1,000 litres is going in.

Whoa! As much as water? Yeah.

What does the resin do for
your paint?

So it binds it all together.

So at the moment, our paint looks
like that, without the resin in it.

And if you move it around,

you can see that it's not being
held together.

And this is finished paint,
with a resin in.

And as you can see, all that
titanium, china clay,

all the liquid, that is binding to
the side of the beaker there.

Oh, yeah! And there is a distinct
difference between the two.

There most certainly is, my friend.

It sticks nicely to the side
because all the components

within it are all staying together.

Made from vinyl acetate
and ethylene,

the resin is essentially the glue
that sticks everything together

when the paint finally dries into
a thin film on your wall.

It also makes it wipeable.

After being thoroughly mixed for 30
minutes,

the result is enough smooth
emulsion paint

to fill more than 2,000 tins.

But there's something missing...

Lots of processes, lots of different
ingredients, it's still white.

Can I go and add some colour? Yeah,
that's the next step.

Down there? Downstairs.

Thank you very much, sir. Thank
you. You're a fine fellow.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Adding colour to my white base paint
will finally bring it to life.

But during World War I,

bright paint did more than
motivate a makeover.

It may have saved lives.

LOUD EXPLOSIONS

The First World War was not just a
war about trenches

and land armies.

Much of it was played out at sea.

And off Britain's coasts,

there was a predator lurking beneath
the waves.

U-boats.

In February 1917, after three years
of stalemate,

Germany launched a naval strategy
to destroy shipments to Britain

of vital food and military
supplies from her allies.

In just three months,

German submarines sank more than 500
merchant ships.

The British Navy had to
retaliate,

and it did so with one of the
strangest ideas in military history.

Here, dry docked in Portsmouth,
is the last remaining

British First World War ship...

..that is still painted
in "dazzle camouflage".

Matthew Sheldon is executive
director

of the National Museum of the
Royal Navy.

Matthew, hello! Hello, Ruth.
It's lovely to see you.

Nice to see you.

So why on earth has this ship got
such a dazzling paintwork?

Well, it was applied to ships
from about 1917,

to try and dazzle German U-boat
commanders

who were looking through their
periscopes

and trying to target these ships
with their deadly torpedoes.

It sounds really strange,
doesn't it?

I mean, you imagine you want
ships to hide at sea,

you'd want to paint them sea
coloured. Yeah, they did do that.

You're used to things being painted
grey, and that's really camouflage.

This was not camouflage.

We knew we couldn't hide ships
completely from U-boats,

so what we were trying to do was
to confuse that person

looking through the periscope,
planning the bearing and the speed

of the torpedo they were going
to fire,

and try and confuse them, literally
dazzle their minds.

These extraordinary ships employed
visual strategies

to trick the eye...

..including the shimmering
effect of chequerboard patterns,

as used on the famous liner
the Mauritania,

commissioned to carry US
troops to Europe.

We've now got curved lines affecting
the hull,

and it becomes harder to understand
the exact shape of that

in different sea conditions.

Yeah, that seems to sort of move
all on its own, doesn't it?

It moves, yeah, and the thing
that really mattered was

if you alter the perspective,

the person firing can't tell how
far the ship away is,

or perhaps that it's, you can't tell
which direction it's going.

Yeah. So you'd aim wrong,
you'd aim front or back. Absolutely.

So where did the idea for dazzle
camouflage come from?

I'm meeting Camilla Wilkinson,
a senior lecturer

at the University of Westminster,
who's researching dazzle painting,

the camouflage scheme which was
invented by her grandfather.

Hello. Hello, how do you do?

So tell me, who was your
grandfather?

So, my grandfather,
Norman Wilkinson, was an artist.

He'd really wanted to be
an artist from a very young age

and really from his early youth was
drawing and painting ships.

From 1900 onwards, he was working
for the Illustrated London News.

Really illustrating the arms race

that was building up to the
First World War.

With the outbreak of war,

and while drawing the growing
number of stricken ships,

Wilkinson was struck by the scale
of the tragedy unfolding at sea.

And when he later signed
up for the Navy,

his deep visual understanding of
ships and shipwrecks

allowed him to address the problem

of how to protect Britain's fleet in
a whole new way.

This is the sketch that he first
took to the Admiralty,

and you can see here the silhouette
of a sinking ship

laid over the elevation of a ship.

Oh, yes, definitely.

As if it had broken in half there
and there's the bow

sticking up out of the sea.
That's right, yes.

So when the periscope comes up,

instead of seeing the ship
they're expecting,

they're seeing a wreck.

Well, yes, I mean, initially,

I think then when it actually came
to the designs,

the designs became more abstract,

and he was actually using the
visual distortion.

The Admiralty gambled on Wilkinson's
designs,

commissioning the first dazzle
paint job in May 1917.

For the British officers witnessing
the ships for the first time,

it was a mind-bending experience.

I've got one of the accounts
from the seamen's reports

that were made after the dazzle
ships were painted.

"So remarkable was this optical
illusion

"that I sent for all my officers

"and asked for their opinion as to
the course of the ship.

"Not one officer agreed with
the others."

So, it had actually worked,

it had confused a set of experienced
naval officers... That's right.

..to such a degree they couldn't
even agree amongst themselves

where the blinking ship was going.

Yeah, I think that happened
quite often.

Norman and his team, known as the
Royal Navy's "dazzle section",

tested their designs on intricate
models...

..before painting them
on the real thing.

More than 4,000 ships - both naval
and merchant vessels -

were eventually painted with
dazzle camouflage,

in an ever-changing array
of patterns.

What did people at the time think
about it?

In the press, it was seen as quite
a sort of light spot in the war.

It was seen as something
quite different.

Dazzle camouflage may have
brightened up the war effort,

but it was no joke.

The statistics on how well it
worked in practice are unclear...

..but for the men crossing
perilous seas,

the psychological effect was
immense.

There was a point where the
Admiralty actually questioned

whether they would continue
painting the ships.

One of the key reasons for deciding
to continue

was that it really boosted
the morale of the merchant seamen.

They felt they were protected.

I can really see why people
stuck with it.

I mean, it's clever, and it's a
genuine attempt

to support the war effort,

to bring more food, to bring more
ammunition,

to save ships, and, of course, to
save lives.

That's right. That's exactly right.

And more than 100 years on from the
Armistice,

looking at this magnificent ship,

it's clear that Norman Wilkinson's
dazzling idea

still stands as one of the
boldest in the history of warfare.

At the factory in Dorset, they make
nearly 300 dazzling paints,

with colours ranging from
Red Earth...

..to Teresa's Green.

But after five hours and 17 minutes
of loading and mixing,

my interior emulsion is still in
desperate need

of a splash of colour.

So, my white base paint is pumped
to the Pigment area...

..where I'm meeting Nate Land.

Hey.

Nate? Hello, sir. Hello, Gregg.

How do we get it under way? Right.

We simply hit the continue button.

We'll have 900 litres of
the base dispensed into that pot.

I'll do it. And that should start
right up.

Whoa!

Does that splash?

No, you should be all right.

Very impressive
but still very, very white.

We're going to make a colour
called Sulking Room Pink.

Say that again. Sulking Room Pink.

Sulking Room Pink! Yes.

Who comes up with these names, Nate?

Well, this one was actually
created by our colour curator, Joa.

It comes from boudoirs.

But boudoir is like a bedroom,
right?

No, boudoir comes from the French
word bouder,

which means to sulk.

HE EXCLAIMS IN SURPRISE

For its moody makeover,
Nate manoeuvres the 1,200 kilos

of white base paint,
enough for 360 tins,

to the pigment adding station.

I've got a selection of colourants
here that are going to go into this.

You haven't just got a pot of pink.
No!

We need to mix a mix from a fair few
different colourants

to get the pink that we require.

There's very different tones
of pink.

You want to get your own colour
palette, right? Exactly.

My pink is made by adding a precise
amount of three colours,

starting with small measures dished
out by the computer,

down to the millilitre.

At the moment, we've got some
violet,

we've got a little bit of
red and a little bit of black.

I can't tell you exactly what
they are made from,

but I can tell you they're a mixture
of chemicals, minerals and oxides.

Now, I was expecting the factory's
secret recipe to involve

mixing red to the white
to make pink - but black??!

It's not quite enough red
or black there,

so we need to put another two
litres of black,

another four litres of red.
We're going to do that by hand,

would you like to give me a hand
with that? I would love to.

We pour out the larger quantities
from pre-measured one litre pots.

Right, so we've got some
Brickmaker's Red here.

We've got some Strong Black there.

And like I say, we've got
a bit of violet as well, going in.

So get all that in there,
lovely jubbly.

Mate!

Looks like Jackson Pollock.

Whoa!

Come on! Get 'em in there.

That's beautiful. All right.

Now we need to get every last morsel
out, so with our spatulas...

..just get the last bits out.

Wahey!

This is fun!

Whoa! Whoa!

Ha! Ha-ho!

I reckon I could get five
grand for that in some galleries.

A bit of modern art for you, Gregg

That is really smart.

Oh, yes.

Wow!

Man, that's trippy.

Look at this.

This is fantastic.

With every turn, so you get
a different colour profile...

..and a different pattern.

This is amazing!

Look, look, look.
I'm getting salmon.

I'm not really getting sulky
boudoir,

but I'm definitely getting salmon.

Whoa.

That is fabulous.

Yes!

I could stay here for ages, mixing
psychedelic colours,

but to get it fully blended, Nate
insists I close and set the mixer.

If you'd like to hit the start
button, Gregg.

MACHINE WHIRRS INTO LIFE

Now, what we're looking for is
a nice vortex in the middle.

We don't want to be pulling in too
much air,

but we want to make sure

we're pulling all the paint in
from the side.

So we turn it at 800 per minute.

You can see all this colour
developing now.

It mixes thoroughly for 20 minutes,

destroying my modern art!

But I suppose traditional
DIYers don't want

pockets of unexpected colour
in their pots!

That definitely looks like the
colour we're after,

so we've definitely done it right.

That's not lairy at all, is it?

No, that's how it's meant to look.

I was expecting a really shiny,
bright pink,

but that's not, it's quite subtle.
Yeah.

I really like that.

Yeah, I think it's a nice pink,

it's got a little
bit of a dark tinge to it.

We sell it to paint on
people's walls,

but it's also what we use to put on
the wallpaper

that you'll be making later.
Brilliant. Well, look,

I really hope my wallpaper making
is as lovely as that.

Thanks for your help.
Thank you, Nate. Take care.

With my pink paint perfectly mixed,

my next stop is the factory's busy
wallpaper department,

where they make over 10,000 metres
of colourful prints every week.

I grew up in a house with big
flowery wallpaper,

and I haven't seen anything like
that for years.

But now wallpaper is making
a big comeback,

so when did we first start
papering over the cracks?

Ruth has been stripping back
the history.

Since the Middle Ages,
the wealthy and the powerful

covered their walls with tapestries
or with silks like this.

But when did we start sticking
paper to our walls?

I'm in the beautiful Lake District,

to unfurl the story with Allyson
McDermott...

..who is one of Britain's foremost
makers, restorers,

and historians of wallpaper.

Allyson, hello! Hello!

This looks intriguing.

So, how far back does wallpaper go?

I mean, it's quite difficult because
when is a wallpaper a wallpaper?

Is it anything that is stuck
to a wall...

Made of paper. ..made of paper.

So how old is this then?

That's late 17th century.

A lot of the early papers dating
from the 16th and 17th century

were multipurpose,

and they were using them
to line boxes and shelves

and case instruments - and walls.

So, it's sort of like an all-purpose
decorative scheme. Yeah.

These early experiments in wallpaper
got a boost

by changing ideas around hygiene.

Instead of wood, from the 17th
century coal began to be

burned in homes, which left a sticky
black residue,

that collected dirt on the fabrics

that adorned the homes of
the wealthy.

Wallpaper was seen as a
much more hygienic alternative.

Every wallpaper made in Britain
was 21 inches wide.

That was the size of the moulds that
were available for making the paper.

Oh! Because they're incredibly
heavy.

Hardwood frame, filled with water
and paper pulp.

So, the size you could make had to
be something

that a person could hold? Exactly.

The wallpaper was made in moulds

from a pulp of linen
and cotton rags,

which dried into paper.

It was then transformed
into elaborate designs.

But one of the most fashionable to
have in the home was flock.

The textured flock resembled the
textile wall hangings,

and was made from real wool fibres,

giving it a luxurious feel.

That is flock? That is flock.

Chopped-up wool fibres. Yeah.

In the 18th century, they were
chopped by hand, using a guillotine.

There must have been
loads of wool about at that time.

Well, there was because it was
such an important industry.

Before the flock could be applied,
designs were printed,

using hand carved wooden blocks
dipped in paint.

Into the bed.

Put this on by hand.

This is oil and resin-based
because it retains its stickiness.

OK. So this is close to oil paint.
Yeah.

Now do I just lift this off?
Yeah. OK.

Whoa! Whoa!

While the thick paint was
still sticky,

it was a race against time for early
wallpaper makers

to apply the flock, with the aid of
a contraption called a flock box.

So this is all still wet, isn't it?

It is. You've got about a half
an hour window.

Right.

It's a bit like doing a glitter
card at school, isn't it?

You put the glue on, then you shake
the glitter on. Exactly.

Absolutely exactly like that.

OK. Right.

Now this...

Very gently knock
it from underneath. Oh!

It just helps the flock sort
of settle.

You get a much more even coverage.

In just a matter of minutes...

It's off.

Oh, wow!

That's brilliant, isn't it?

Doesn't that look amazing?

The simple paper is transformed.

I can see why it was popular.

I mean, who was buying this stuff?

Well, small-scale flocks
were for sort of merchants' houses.

But we exported them throughout
Europe.

I mean, Madame de Pompadour,
who was the lover of Louis XV,

used it in her private apartments in
Versailles, allegedly.

You know, if it's good enough for
the Palace of Versailles,

it's good enough for me.

Absolutely. Looks great.

At the factory, after six hours
and 32 minutes,

I've made my dark pink
emulsion paint.

It's ready to be put into tins.

But some of it is heading to
another building on site,

so I can make traditional wallpaper.

The factory produces 49
different wallpapers,

with new patterns added every
few years.

Their most popular
orders are historical designs,

painted on machines that use tried
and tested techniques

like roller and block printing.

I'm on my way to hang out with
wallpaper machine operator

John Bailey.

Hi, Gregg. Hello, my friend.

Looking here at all these rolls.
Yeah.

Where does it come from?

Northern England and Italy.

It's produced up in those factories
and brought down to here.

This is 140g per square metre,

so it's a lot heavier
than your normal A4 paper.

It's woven paper as well.

What does that mean, John?
Basically, woven is the texture,

so it's got a weave to it.

So when you apply the wallpaper
paste, it's more absorbable.

Unlike many modern wallpapers with
a mix of synthetic fibres,

here they use 100% natural
paper from traditional wood pulp,

supplied in jumbo rolls.

So, we're looking at 3,600
metres of paper here.

You can get around about 360 rolls
of wallpaper.

That'd get your lounge done,
wouldn't it! Definitely.

Instead of simply printing
a design on paper using modern inks,

they colour it using 130 litres
of the factory's own emulsion paint.

If you have a look in this
barrel... That's my paint!

That's your paint. That's your
Sulk Room Pink.

Over here is your paint trough.

If you switch this pump on,

it'll start pumping up
paint into our trough here.

There it is.

You are filling up a small paddling
pool with pink paint.

That's it.

Let's get the paper moving.

So just push that button that says
"main motor".

MACHINE WHIRRS SOFTLY

There we are.

So, what's happening here,

we've got the paint going onto
the cylinder

The cylinder's then applying that
paint onto the paper.

Let me get this right.

We've got a trough full of
pink paint. Yep.

That paint is going onto
this roller.

The paper is going over the roller,
picking up the pink paint.

Is this the way all paper is
coloured?

No, this is the way we do it,
and it's the traditional way,

and we believe it's better.

You get a better depth,
better texture.

We use paint. We don't use ink.

Cheaper ink is a thin dissolved
solution of dyes

that can be sprayed and penetrate
the paper.

But paint is thicker, and doesn't
dissolve,

so it sits on top of the surface,
building up a textured layer.

So the next point, we've got an
air knife.

It's like the hand dryers
you get in the bathrooms.

The air knife is blowing a thin line
of air, taking the excess paint off.

And now that's going over here,
where the brush is smoothing it out.

Why do you have a brush?

It massages the paint into
the paper.

It creates a brushed finish,
so it makes it look hand-painted.

The brushed paint forms
a quarter of a millimetre-thick

layer on the paper.

After its blow dry and massage,

this pampered pink wallpaper enjoys
a hot stone heat treatment,

passing under heated ceramic tiles
for one minute

at 80 degrees Celsius.

Enough time to dry the paint
without burning the paper.

There we are!

We've got pink.

So now my big roll of blush is
ready for its design.

We've got it. Thank you.

And for that, me and my paper are
heading

to the pattern printing machine.

Hello, Simon. Good to see you again.
And you mate.

I'm guessing this is going to put
a pattern onto our paper. Yeah.

Obviously, we've got
our background colour now,

and what we're going to do is print
on top of it, using this block.

Where do you get these blocks?
Has someone got to make them? Yeah.

So these are made specially
for us.

So what we do is we order a blank,

which is basically the right
circumference,

and then we send them a digital
design of what we want to make,

and then they will actually machine
that out for us.

What's it made out of?

It's a wood and polymer resin mix,

so it can't be too hard,
because then it'll be too fragile.

It can't be too soft because then it
won't print properly.

So we put the block in.

Is there a name for this pattern?

So this is Lotus, from a 19th
century pattern.

What colour are we going to
put on this block?

So this is going to have a gold
metallic print on top of it.

Wow! Yeah.

This shiny metallic gloss is
made from a paste containing real

flakes of bronze, that bind together
with resin, making it tougher

and stickier than the matt
emulsion paint.

So that roller's now absorbed
that gold paint.

A bit nervous. I like my pink.

I'm a bit nervous of gold
on top of it.

Now we've got the gold onto the
roller bar.

Whoa, look at that!

You've got your print going on to
the paper. Mate!

That isn't just wallpaper.

That is one hell of a statement.
Isn't it just?

So, what you can see now, that
roller has picked up the paint,

and is now going across the surface
of the block.

So that will continually apply the
design to the paper with no gaps.

So the sponge picks up the paint?
Exactly.

The sponge puts it onto your roller,

and the roller prints
it on the paper? Exactly.

The roller turns at ten
centimetres a second...

..and is monitored to ensure
there's continuous contact,

creating a perfect print.

Who is going to have pink
and gold wallpaper in their house?

A lot of the paper that we do is
designed for feature walls.

So it's quite an impactful image,
but it's quite small.

Listen, that's not necessarily the
colour scheme that I would choose,

but it is striking and I am
impressed by the process.

Brilliant, yeah.

The design, printed on top
of brushed paint, pays homage

to the Arts and Crafts movement,
creating a handcrafted effect.

Nothing out of a computer,

that is paint and pattern paint on
paint. Absolutely, yeah.

Everything we do is the most
traditional method.

So whether it be roller printing,
block printing or drags

and stripes, it's all very historic,
very traditional manufacturing.

The historic gold design is
dried at 80 degrees Celsius.

So, this is our glaze station.

This is where we apply
the top glaze.

It's a clear glaze made out of resin
and water,

that's going to give it
a level of protection.

It'll clean up if you get
sauce on it, stuff like that.

Rotating foam pads ensure the
printed wallpaper is evenly coated

with a thin film of the resin.

Just enough of a barrier
for flying sauces!

Is that another oven?

So, yeah, this will go through
another oven,

heated to 80 degrees again.

It will then come out dry,

and as you can see, we've got
much more of a matt finish.

Very lovely.

I like the rolls and the
ripple effect.

I do. I do.

So, Gregg, this is our final part.

This is where we're actually going
to take the rolls

and roll them up into 10 metre
lengths.

We're trimming them at this point.

So what we're going to do, is we're
going to cut a little bit

of each side off, roughly about
half an inch.

The key thing here is that we're
going to make sure we've lined it up

correctly, so we are taking off
exactly the right amount each side.

Close checks are vital here, to
ensure the trims on each side

will result in the correct repeat
pattern when the wallpaper is hung.

And this is our final quality
control stage.

So what we can do here, is take
a sample of it,

take it to our hang boards, line
it up and make sure it's all right.

So, here's one if you'd like
to check it.

That feels like an honour.

With the accuracy of the roller
and the precision of the trim,

the sheets should fit perfectly
together

to create a large intricately
weaving Lotus pattern.

So we've got to make sure that the
pattern's aligned,

got to make sure that the repeat's
in place.

Hey, how do you guarantee that
that's going to happen?

So, the mechanics of the line

and the guy setting it up
and the guys trimming it

are the three key elements to make
sure it all lines up correctly.

You can clearly feel the two
separate layers. Yep.

And this is one of the
differences you get

with using paint on paper,
as opposed to inks.

So are you comfortable now that
we've got it? Yep.

So we're lined up nicely.

It all looks nice and
even - it's flat.

There's no sheen imbalance on it
whatsoever.

The print looks good, so we can make
the order ready for shipping.

Isn't that wonderful? OK.

How much is that a roll?
That's £170 a roll.

It doesn't come cheap, your
expertise, mate.

It does not, no, it doesn't.

Although many of us have probably
had a go at painting,

not everyone's got the confidence
to hang their own wallpaper.

Cherry's been getting the lowdown on
the perfect drop.

It seems like wallpaper is all
the rage right now,

and I'm feeling inspired.

I have actually tried wallpapering
once before,

and it didn't really go very well.

So, to master the how-tos of hanging
a roll,

I'm at the DIY School in Stockport,

where tradespeople
and budding DIYers like me

can brush up on their skills,

with the help of decorating guru
Kat Corbett.

Hi, Kat. Ah, hello.

Lovely to meet you. You too.

So, I need your help.

Many years ago, I tried to wallpaper
and it was a complete disaster.

At one point my hand went
through the wallpaper. Yep.

When it finally was up, it looked
terrible and was all baggy.

This is something we do hear
a lot of.

So, time for Kat to impart
some of her top tips.

And it all starts with
the choice of paper.

You've got your woven paper
and your non-woven paper.

They're your basics.

The woven papers, which are your
traditional papers,

they are plant based, cellulose
fibres.

Right. Now we've got the
non-woven papers,

which have got the plastics in
there,

which helps it hold its shape.

Unlike Gregg's woven paper, 30% of
this paper is acrylic plastic,

which makes it a bit easier
for a learner like me to handle.

But first we need to prep our wall,
because the wallpaper paste

will behave differently
depending on the type of surface.

You can see how, simply by flicking
water at the wall.

The fresh plaster's gone darker.
Yeah.

That means that the water is
absorbed into the surface. Yeah.

If you put a single layer of
paste on this,

your paste would be absorbed in
these areas, not absorbed in this.

And then what would happen?

Your paper would be attached here
and not here.

To prevent patchy plaster,

we need to first apply
a watered-down wallpaper paste.

Roll it on and leave it to dry.

During that drying process,
it will be absorbed into the wall,

and seal the surface for us.

After sealing, Kat recommends
students apply a lining paper,

to provide a super-smooth surface.

Can I have a go at that? Yeah.

So you want to go to that way,
sideways.

That's to get all the bubbles out.

Yeah, perfect.

And once you're ready to start
hanging the wallpaper itself,

there are some simple measurements
you can make for perfect placement.

What I absolutely recommend from the
start is finding

the centre of your wall.
Why is that?

Because your eye will always pick
up on the middle first.

So if you end up with a seam
right in the middle of your wall,

your eyes will see that before
they see the overall impact. I see.

We measure out half
the width of the wallpaper

on either side of the centre line.

Standard wallpaper
is 53 centimetres wide.

Use a spirit level to draw
a line from ceiling to floor,

marking out the edges of your first
piece of wallpaper.

And the benefit of modern acrylic
paper is that you can paste

the wall directly, not the
wallpaper.

And you're going to do
the very top edge.

I'm going to swap you
the brush for the roller. OK.

And you're going to work
all your way down,

overlapping that line -
that's it, lovely.

You want it slightly wider than
the paper is going to be. OK.

So, we overlap on the seams
for the papers.

We want it thick enough
so you could write your name.

What exactly is wallpaper paste?
It doesn't feel very sticky.

No, as it dries, that's when they
really take action and keep hold.

The paste works by soaking up water

and retaining it for longer
than regular glue.

This means a slow bonding speed,
and more time to dry,

giving you wiggle room to get your
wallpaper up

and make any adjustments.

I'm going to get right up to the
top with my paper.

I'm going to drop that down to you.

I want you to just make sure it
doesn't hit the wall.

All I'm doing is lining up
the edge of my paper...

With that line you drew.
..with that line.

OK. So with your brush or your
smoother, whichever one you prefer,

any bubbles that are stuck under
there, you are moving down and out.

Once you've smoothed out
the bubbles,

Kat recommends using a sharp craft
knife to trim around the ceiling,

the floor, and obstacles
like a window frame or fireplace.

So, I'm going to find the pattern.

OK, there's my pattern.
Well done.

Oh, I bet you're good at jigsaws.

As the water in the paste
slowly evaporates,

it leaves behind an adhesive,

which bonds to both the wall
and the wallpaper,

locking them together.

I now know the theory - time to try
wallpaper hanging in practice!

Is it there? Is it there?

Yes.

I'm sorry, but I'm really good
at that!

Is that perfect? Yeah, well done!
Yeah, yeah!

I'm really proud of myself!

Well done.

I can't actually believe this,
but I really enjoyed that.

I'm a total wallpaper convert.

Well done. You've been an absolute
joy to "hang" out with.

THEY LAUGH

Thank you so much, Kat.

Thank you very much.

Back at the traditional wallpaper
and paint factory,

the lovely team here have helped
me prepare

my water based interior
emulsion paint...

..mixed to make a 900 litre
batch of Sulking Room Pink.

To get it ready for filling,

the paint is pumped into a hopper
above the conveyor line.

Then it's squirted into
two-and-a-half-litre pots

every three-and-a-half seconds.

The nozzle uses 220 jets to get
an even, dripless flow.

In just 20 minutes,

360 tins of my paint are ready
for storage at Dispatch...

..where warehouse manager Jo
Karpiuk has asked me

to bring a box of eight rolls of my
pink and gold wallpaper.

Jo? Hi, yeah.

Wallpaper - where shall I put it?

Could you just set it down here
for me, please.

Certainly. Certainly.

Hello, Jo. Jo, how many tins of
paint you have in here, do you know?

It's usually about 460,000 litres
of paint that we store in here.

Wow! Wow!

That's enough paint in this
one warehouse

to fill more than 5,700 bathtubs!

If you wanted to fill a bathtub
with paint, that is!

I'm impressed, Jo.

Hundreds of different shades here.

How many tins of paint are you
sending out of here each day?

Around 10,000 tins a day.

And wallpaper? 450 rolls a day.

Really? Yeah.

But despite some big orders to shops
and superstores,

the factory also offers a more
bespoke service direct to DIYers.

Has anybody ordered my pink paint?

Yes. Actually, I am holding an order
right here for two tins of paint

and some wallpaper.

Where is it? It's just behind you.

Of course it is.

Is this a good seller, this?

It's one of our most popular ones.

Really? Yeah.

Are you going to charge extra
because I helped make it?

No, we're going to charge less!

Did the person who ordered my paint,
did they order the wallpaper?

Yes, they have. Brilliant.

They're going to have a living room
that looks like a strawberry sundae.

Oh, yeah!

My tins of paint are sent down the
line for packing into boxes,

ready for shipping.

So this pallet is a pallet
of individual orders

What do we do with this pallet now?

So we're just waiting for the order
you just picked

to be placed on a pallet.

Hey, thank you very much.

Look at that. That completes that
beautifully.

And what you going to do now?

So we're going to wrap
the pallet now,

so it's all safe and stable.

Although this pallet contains 36
individual orders,

they're still wrapped together

to avoid an en route paint spill
disaster.

No-one wants a Sulking Pink van!

Right. So that's wrapped and
labelled. It can go on the van now.

Oi, oi!

You all right, mate?

Be careful, special load that is,
I done that.

That's my order on there.

Somebody's got a really nice pink
surprise coming.

End of my journey.

Interesting and most certainly
very colourful.

Thank you, Jo. Thank you so much,
Gregg.

Watching my little order
leave feels...

.."emulsional"!

15 hours and 42 minutes after
the start of production...

..my pink paint and patterned wall
paper is heading to London...

..while other deliveries
decorate all over the UK...

..and as far afield as Canada...

..Japan...

..and Greenland!

I've enjoyed my time here.

This is a big company with
a small company feel,

and it's full of very
passionate people.

But mixing up a big
vat of coloured paint...

Get 'em in there.

Whoa! Whoa!

..was one of the loveliest things
I've ever, ever done.

And now I'd like to think there's
a really classy boudoir somewhere,

all done up in Sulking
Room Pink.

The factory has come a long way
from its first early assembly lines.

But how did we get from there
to here?

Explore the history and future of
the factory

on an interactive timeline.

Go to...

and follow the links to the
Open University.