This mat was inspired by an excerpt from an origami book I found in the library here. It was the intro to instructions about making a ‘folded link chain’ that caught my eye.

It is known that the same lock (but made from a longer strip) was used by poor children in the East End of London early this century to make large floor mats out of old sweet wrappers.

For me this was a tantilising description… and by happy co-incidence I had saved half a shoe box full of toffee wrappers saved from my kids, so I had a quick go.

The mat I made was very small – only around 90 wrappers (wrappers measure 3 1/2 inches x 2 1/2 inches. 10 x 8 mat measures 9 x 7 inches including fringes). It would have been thicker and stronger but half the size if I’d used full wrappers. As it was I used half a wrapper for each link resulting in a thinner but larger mat.

Perhaps in the early 1900s they had wrappers of a different dimension that would have resulted in sturdier mats (or maybe they trimmed them all before folding?). Nevertheless, I feel that it is unlikely they would have been used as floor mats because they would not withstand even light footfall for very long and in Britain it is the norm to wear shoes indoors. I think it is more likely that they would have been used as placemats and coasters – if they had a layer of foil like mine they would have offered some level of heat resistance.

Maybe we’ll neve know for sure – if anyone has any further insights about the history of these mats, I’d be very interested to hear from you.