The Wick List
Viewing The Bayeux Tapestry
Above © LFPN A. Cazin
Above © LFPN A. Cazin
The British Museum
Great Russell Street
London
WC1B 3DG
10 September 2026 – 11 July 2027
Seventy metres of history.
Almost a thousand years after it was made, the Bayeux Tapestry travels to England this September for a historic exhibition at the British Museum. The loan from France marks the first time the work has been displayed in the UK since its creation.
Despite its name, the Bayeux Tapestry is technically an embroidery, worked in wool thread across linen cloth and stretching an extraordinary 70 metres. Across 58 scenes, 626 figures populate the story of the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, amid ships, ceremonies, domestic life and warfare.
Details of clothing, architecture and seafaring offer a close look at life on either side of the Channel in the 11th century, while the procession of scenes turns history into something remarkably cinematic centuries before cinema existed.
The British Museum will use works from its own collection alongside other loans to expand the story around the embroidery. Its arrival forms part of a major cultural exchange with France, with British Museum treasures including objects from Sutton Hoo and the Lewis chess pieces travelling to museums in Normandy in return.
For the many generations who first encountered the Bayeux Tapestry as a strip of images in a schoolbook, seeing all 70 metres in person should be another matter entirely – an unmissable opportunity to see one of the most familiar works in British medieval history at full scale.
Almost a thousand years after it was made, the Bayeux Tapestry travels to England this September for a historic exhibition at the British Museum. The loan from France marks the first time the work has been displayed in the UK since its creation.
Despite its name, the Bayeux Tapestry is technically an embroidery, worked in wool thread across linen cloth and stretching an extraordinary 70 metres. Across 58 scenes, 626 figures populate the story of the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, amid ships, ceremonies, domestic life and warfare.
Details of clothing, architecture and seafaring offer a close look at life on either side of the Channel in the 11th century, while the procession of scenes turns history into something remarkably cinematic centuries before cinema existed.
The British Museum will use works from its own collection alongside other loans to expand the story around the embroidery. Its arrival forms part of a major cultural exchange with France, with British Museum treasures including objects from Sutton Hoo and the Lewis chess pieces travelling to museums in Normandy in return.
For the many generations who first encountered the Bayeux Tapestry as a strip of images in a schoolbook, seeing all 70 metres in person should be another matter entirely – an unmissable opportunity to see one of the most familiar works in British medieval history at full scale.
