All About Escutcheons

While the door furniture pieces required for a front door will vary depending on the style, size and function, all front doors will have a lock, and therefore a need for the small but mighty escutcheon otherwise known as a keyhole cover.

If you’re new to choosing door furniture, escutcheon may be a term you’ve never heard of before, and you won’t be the first person to ask yourself how this word is even pronounced! Escutcheons (pronounced ‘uh-skuht-shn’), are a flat plate of metal that fits around a keyhole.

Choosing the right escutcheon can add the perfect finishing touch to your door, and work as an accent to tie your other ironmongery pieces together. Escutcheons are mainly used to neaten the appearance of the keyhole, but they aren’t purely decorative. They’ll also protect your door from key scratches, and if you choose a covered escutcheon, they’ll keep pesky drafts from blowing through your keyhole.

We have a wide range of escutcheons available to suit all sorts of doors, from rustic beeswax to shiny polished nickel. To find the best fit for your door, consider the points below:

Finish – To ensure the finish matches your other door furniture, use the finish menu on the left-hand side of the page to narrow down the selection.

Style – Consider any details or design features of your door handles or other door furniture and look for an escutcheon that replicates these. For example, a Reeded or Oval Beehive escutcheon will pick up the reeded detailing on our Beehive Door Knobs. For a great all rounder that pairs well with most handles, we recommend the Plain Round Escutcheon.

Size - If you’re trying to cover up existing screw holes or scratch marks around your keyhole, you may want to opt for a larger size (our Square Escutcheon is the largest in our range and will offer the most coverage).

Covered or uncovered? - All our escutcheons are sold individually, so you have the option to mix and match on the inside and outside of the door. Most of our customers choose to fit a covered escutcheon on the outside of the door and uncovered on the inside.

Absolutely! If you have a Euro key cylinder, look out for an escutcheon with ‘Euro’ in the name, as these will have a different shaped hole to traditional keyhole escutcheons. You can even find a covered escutcheon for a Euro lock - these are quite a bit larger than our traditional escutcheons, in order to fully cover the key cylinder. This is a great option if you’d like to cover up your modern Euro lock to give your door a more traditional appearance.

For Yale locks or other cylinder locks, a latch pull is a great alternative to an escutcheon and will allow you to tie your key cylinder in with the finish on the rest of the door. These are simply held in place by the key cylinder and don’t need to be screwed with screws.     

We hope our guide sheds some light on this small but essential piece of door furniture and helps you choose the perfect escutcheon for your door! If you’d like further suggestions or advice about the best style for your home, get in touch with our team online or give us a call on 01326 311388 and we’ll be happy to help.

You can visit our entire escutcheon collection here.