The Bayeux Tapestry has arrived at the British Museum in London, returning to England for the first time in almost 1000 years ahead of its display this autumn. At approximately 6am on Friday, 10 July, the museum director Nicholas Cullinan wrote on Instagram: “The Bayeux Tapestry has arrived @britishmuseum, the first time it has travelled across the Channel since it was made in the 1070s.”
According to the BBC, the tapestry was driven into a loading bay at the museum around 2.50am in front of selected guests including the French ambassador to the UK, Hélène Tréheux-Duchêne. The 70m tapestry was removed from a secret location in northern France and transported by lorry through the Channel Tunnel on a 350 mile trip reportedly lasting 11 hours.
The BBC reports that the folding stand, which the tapestry has been kept on since it was taken down from display at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Normandy last year, was put inside a crate, with temperature and humidity regulation.
The crate was then placed into an outer cage fitted with metal springs which acted as shock absorbers, protecting the embroidery from bumps in the road and allaying fears about transporting such a fragile object. The Metropolitan Police Service and Kent Police transported the 11th century work safely from Folkestone to London overnight, according to a museum statement.
The Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the 1066 Norman invasion and the Battle of Hastings, will be displayed in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery from 10 September until July 2027, while the Bayeux Tapestry Museum undergoes renovations. The tapestry will be shown horizontally for the first time in the British Museum display.
The tapestry is owned by the French state, not the Bayeux institution, so the loan has been negotiated with the government. In an op-ed for Le Monde, Cullinan wrote that, “for nearly a millennium, France has cared for one of the world’s greatest historical treasures.”
“Now, for the first time, France has chosen to let it cross the Channel. Museum loans are common. This is not. To entrust another country with one of your most cherished cultural treasures is an act that reaches beyond diplomacy. It is a gesture of confidence, of friendship and, above all, of trust,” he added.
The museum thanked France for the unprecedented loan with a projection on Dover's famous white cliffs
© The Trustees of the British Museum
The museum also projected an image of the tapestry on to the white cliffs of Dover, facing France across the Channel, with the word merci (thank you). Meanwhile President Emmanuel Macron wrote in The Times that “our two countries are not merely lending each other artworks: they are sharing the great narratives of European history’s origins.”
Ticket sales for the exhibition generated over £2.5m on the first day, marking the “single biggest day of ticket sales in its history”, according to a museum statement.
