The budget boozer’s carpets may look as if they are designed to disguise vomit but, in reality, each one is a bespoke work of art

Look down in any Wetherspoon’s pub and there, soaking up the beery tears of pensioners, students and stags, you’ll see a minor masterpiece. Every carpet in the chain, which is often alleged to be one of the great homogenising forces of British life, is unique, made from scratch, and ornately patterned.

This fact has been documented by London blogger, Kit Caless, whose Tumblr is dedicated to cataloguing every one of the 950 Wetherspoons carpet designs in the country.

Jon Randall, the chain’s head of acquisitions and development, is a fan of the blog. “I thought it was excellent,” he says. “Especially for us, because over the years we haven’t kept a very good record of what carpets went where.”

I ask which carpet is his favourite. A few hazy nostalgic moments follow: he thinks back to where he was when the jazzy 80s modernism of the William Rufus in Carlisle was rolled out, or when the lurid fire stripes of the William Stead in Darlington were finally approved.

But, in common with many artists, his favourite piece is the most recent design he worked on. “It’s The Mossy Well in Muswell Hill. I also quite like our pub in London – The Cross Keys – which has gold keys on a blue carpet, because it’s obvious that it’s unique to that pub.”

Unique doesn’t come cheap. These post-Blair Bayeux tapestries cost between £20,000 and £30,000 each. They’re partly hand-made – by the renowned firm Axminster, no less. Randall says carpets usually have just five or six colours in the mix; whereas those in Wetherspoon’s often have more, meaning they have to be produced on old-fashioned looms.

The Brightwater Inn, Southampton. Photograph: Adam Smith

Randall can’t think of a single other high-street chain that does the same. “Everyone just uses the pre-made stuff, which is about half the price.”

Sadly, there is no one design guru, no Peter Saville-type genius, churning out the patterns. Instead, Randall relies on five or six in-house architects, who are each tasked to work on a new pub.

“We pick the pub name, and take ideas from the building and the town itself. Then we make sure it’s all integrated, and part of that would be the carpets.”

Every pub tells a story: the Britannia in Plymouth is designed to resemble a cruise ship, for example. The carpets come in three sections, the final of which has a wave pattern, to represent “being on the top of the boat and looking off into the sea”. It’s all a far cry from WH Smiths, which inspired a Twitter account cataloguing the pock-marked and threadbare floor coverings in its shops.

Caless began his blog after reading a novel in which the hero uncovers that a bland hotel chain’s corporate art contains hidden messages when put together. Is there a similar, sinister political purpose to these?

“No, but I would say they work on you subconsciously,” says Randall. “Most people don’t even notice them, but they still create a feeling you respond to.”

Yup, blame that final pint of Tuborg on the subliminal carpets.