The Mildmay name has been given to a fabric and wallpaper design in the Arts and Crafts style, which is appropriate given that the history of Mildmay begins in roughly the same era.
The design is from the Archive range by Sanderson Design. This is what it says on their website:
"Enter into a lush and unfurling world of symmetrical design, where verdant ogee-shaped flowerheads encase floribunda clusters in a divinely dramatic scale. Unequivocally a child of the Arts and Crafts era, gravure printing captures the extraordinary influences of this decadent design. Maybe May isn’t so mild, after all?
‘Art’ wallpapers were aimed at dwellers in the newly-built red-brick villas that formed the fashionable suburbs on the edges of Britain’s towns and cities in the 1880s and 1890s. New audiences for design were influenced by displays of decorative arts seen in city museums and in journal articles sharing the latest developments in art and architecture. The Studio Journal of Decorative Art (est. 1893) featured work by leading designer-architects, including C.F.A Voysey - his work may have been the inspiration for this design.
Our earliest archive sample of this pattern was printed in Chelsea by Charles Knowles & Co., ‘Art Wall Paper’ printer located 164 Kings Road, London SW3. Thereafter the design was re-issued in 1968 and then again in 1973 by Arthur Sanderson & Sons as a part of its strikingly modern Heritage Collection."
Coincidentally, the blue and green versions of the design both closely match our brand colours. We have written to Sanderson Design asking if we could use the designs somehow within our hospital, but so far have not had any response. That's why it's important that we keep reiterating that the design is owned by Sanderson Design. We'll keep you posted about our enquiry.
We think the design is entirely appropriate to represent the long history of Mildmay Mission Hospital. What do you think?