The History of the Pocket Door
Finding extra room in the home has been an architectural conundrum for hundreds of years. Here we chart the rise of a leading proponent of domestic space saving - the humble pocket door.
Victorian Era
The pocket door was popularised in Britain and the USA in Victorian times and remains a recognisable feature of many buildings preserved from the era. Driven by a demand for extra room in domestic and public properties, the concept gained prominence as early as the 1850’s.
Initial designs used a floor mechanism to achieve the sliding door system required, however this method was both noisy and susceptible to malfunction. Wear and tear would often cause the sliding mechanism to break, whilst functional issues arose when floorboards became bowed and uneven.
By the 1880’s pocket doors had undergone a significant design change. There were now a number of patented top-hung systems on the market that solved the issues of the antiquated floor based design, and popularity had increased accordingly.
Pocket doors were now commonplace, used as simple room dividers in homes but also as elaborate entrances to public buildings such as libraries and courtrooms. The popularity of the design would continue well into the mid 1920’s when traditional hinged door systems began to gain favour.
Revival

Pocket doors regained prominence in the 1950’s alongside a surge of post-war housing development and a need for space saving solutions in new homes. The system remains popular to the modern day, used as an attractive and efficient space saving solution often used in bathrooms, closets, utility rooms and offices.
Advancement in design and technology make the modern pocket door installation more versatile and functional than ever, including the development of ceiling tracks, floor tracks and multi-pass sliding doors.
Affordable, easy to install and with a vast range of design features, a 21st century pocket door could be just what your home or business needs! To find out more, please follow this link.