Make An Entrance Ltd is a specialist supplier of bespoke doormats to homes and businesses throughout the UK. They make traditional hand-stitched coconut doormats from a workshop in Lincolnshire. The website was founded in 2005 by Samantha Burlton and her husband Stuart, although its roots go back much further.
In the 1990’s, Stuart’s father Allen Burlton ran a factory for the Royal School for the Blind where people made traditionally hand-stitched doormats. Sadly, government policy in the late 1990’s meant the factory closed.
Allen kept the mat-making business going on a very small scale through one tiny workshop in Suffolk and continued to serve his loyal customers.
In 2005 Sam and Stuart launched makeanentrance.com online and started to increase the product range. Today they offer every type of doormat for homes and businesses, including personalised mats for homes and those with company logos.
Since the closure of the blind workshops, the Burlton family had been afraid that the traditional doormat making skill would die out and be lost forever. They set about ensuring that couldn't happen and in 2019 opened a new workshop in Lincolnshire where they now have a skilled workforce all stitching the mats by hand the way they have been made for generations. They have an apprenticeship programme and are always on the lookout for new applicants passionate about heritage skills.
Today Make An Entrance is a multi-award winning UK manufacturer. In June 2023 they were named Small Family Business of the Year 2023 in the prestigious Family Business of the Year Awards.
The judges said:
“The family has built an award-winning business with an incredible web presence and become a market leader in what they do, rekindling the art of a traditional craft that was being lost. The duo behind the business is a formidable force and entrepreneurial in nature, treating others as they want to be treated themselves. They are professional and commercial, kind, and valued as a business and a business at the heart of their community. Sustainability plays its part and innovation drives the business forward.”
The company prides itself on offering proper customer service so if you are interested in a made-to-order doormat but are not sure what you need please get in touch. Their highly knowledgeable customer service team is there Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm on 01522 24 68 38 offering great advice and taking orders by phone if that's your preference.
Many of our products are made in the UK but as doormats tend to be made from coconuts we need to import the raw material. In general, anything that is personalised, customed, or made to order, is made here in our UK workshops. Standard-sized products come from overseas with our raw materials.
Our traditional bespoke hand-stitched doormats are individually made to order in our Lincolnshire workshop from raw material that comes from Sri Lanka and India.
Our logo mats are made in the UK as is the Hug Rug range of washable doormats which we are very proud to stock.
Many of the products we hand-finish in our UK workshops such as cut-to-size matting come to us from suppliers across Europe to be hand finished to our customers' exact requirements in our UK workshops.
Our personalised printed mats are all printed in the UK.
Our raw materials for doormat making are largely coconut-based. These tend to come from either India or Sri Lanka.
Enter Code MAKEITBRITISH to receive 5% off your order.