Brits have played an integral role in having the critical document, which is believed to have been made in the UK, back to the place it was made ahead of a mahor new exhibition
The Bayeux Tapestry has returned to the UK in a highly anticipated one-off exhibition at the British Museum – nearly 1,000 years after it was last in the UK – thanks to the critical efforts of two British curators.
The world-famous, 70-metre-long tapestry documenting the 1066 Norman conquest of England, which laid the historic foundations for the modern United Kingdom, has remained under lock-and-key in France for more than 950 years since 1077. It has now returned to the UK, where it is believed to have been made, having arrived under cover of darkness ahead of a currently sold-out exhibition set to get underway in 2027.
Brits who managed to score tickets to get a look at the tapestry on home turf for the first time in a milennium have dozens of people to thank for carrying out the process – but the exhibition would never have happened without years of effort from high-profile individuals, ranging from academics to diplomats and the French President himself.
Professor Lewis is the only non-French member on the Bayeux Tapestry committee, and Dr Horton-Insch, his co-curator, is a renowned art historian whose expertise covers textiles made in early medieval Britain and Ireland. Efforts to have it returned started with Professor Lewis, who until 2025 was head of the museum’s portable antiquities.
He has spent most of his academic life dedicated to bringing the tapestry home for just a brief visit, with his efforts having pierced Brexit and the Covid pandemic, which he told The Times was particularly “devastating”, adding: “I thought we had lost it for ever.”
The deal to have the document returned to the UK began when the Bayeux Museum, which was created specifically to house and exhibit the tapestry, was closed in 2025. The museum is currently undergoing renovations ahead of celebrations to mark William the Conqueror’s birth in 2027, and needed somewhere to be housed, Professor Lewis said.
He told the publication that he told the Bayeux Tapestry committee: “I proposed the loan as a possibility when the tapestry would need to be stored somewhere.” He added: “Why not Britain?”
His dogged efforts paid off with support from the British Embassy in Paris, with Sir Chris Bryant and his French counterpart Rachida Dati eventually making a deal backed by the British Museum. The museum traded the UK’s stunning Sutton Hoo gold hoard and the medieval Lewis chessmen, an incredible set of 12-century ivory chess pieces discovered in Scotland.
The tapestry’s passage was approved by the Élysée, and arrived in the UK just under a month ago on July 10, coming through the loading gates of the British Museum under police guard at 2.50am.
It was stored in a heavy crate, and encased double in an aliminum frame which was unloaded in front of an exclusive crowd, among them Nick Cullinan, the museum’s director, and French ambassador to the UK Hélène Tréheux-Duchêne. Also there was Dr Horton-Insch, who said she welled up at its arrival.
She told the BBC: “It probably sounds a bit strange to be that excited at seeing a lorry reverse into a loading bay and a box removed, but when you consider the object within it, how old it was, how close to the events it depicts it was made, by people who lived through those events, it’s really profound.
“I did well up a little bit when I saw it coming off the lorry so I imagine I’ll probably be in floods of tears when I actually see it.” Now it’s in the UK, and in a “wonderful state”, it is being carefully cared for by a massive team of people.
Teams of French and British conservators unrolled the embroidery and conditioned it following its arrival, and have now laid it out flat in the museum ahead of the exhibition over fears that hanging it would allow gravity to cause damage. Collections management at the British Museum must ensure that its light exposure, temperature and even humidity levels are kept constant while it is displayed.
The tapestry now has its own envoy, Lord Peter Ricketts, and will be opened jointly by French President Emmanuel Macron, who hailed the tapestry as a representation of “the very origins of our unique relationship”, and King Charles III on September 10.
