© British Museum
© British Museum
The Bayeux Tapestry
10 September 2026 to 11 July 2027
Critic score
A historic loan from France brings the Norman embroidery of the Battle of Hastings to Room 30, its first time in England since it was made nearly 1,000 years ago.
From British Museum
For the first time since it was made nearly 1,000 years ago, the Bayeux Tapestry has returned to England. Following a historic agreement with France, the 70-metre-long tapestry, depicting events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, is being loaned to the British Museum from September 2026 to July 2027. This monumental embroidery tells the dramatic story of a moment that changed England forever....
Read more at British Museum →Critic Reviews (4)
The Times
Laura Freeman
A magnificent, spine-shivering experience
"It is magnificent. Shivers-down-the-spine, tell-the-grandchildren sort of stuff."
Read full review →The Guardian
Jonathan Jones
A stupefying, thrilling, horrifying masterpiece that shakes the earth
"It’s that honesty that makes this not just a fascinating medieval relic but a universal depiction of the madness that is war. If the violence is stunningly real, so are its consequences. The dead bodies pile up in mounds as Saxon after Saxon falls."
Read full review →TimeOut
Andrzej Lukowski
Of course the world's most famous tapestry lives up to a millennium of hype
"It is simply mind-blowing to have this ravening, unfiltered blast of Norman triumphalism right here in the room. Of course I was awed, but I chuckled, puzzled, tried to imagine the 11th century mind, failed."
Read full review →The Telegraph
Alastair Sooke
To see the Bayeux Tapestry back in Britain is the most moving moment of my career
"The tapestry, we realise, is a sort of 11th-century equivalent of Pablo Picasso’s anti-war masterpiece Guernica (1937). This part, its most famous section, is not the tub-thumping celebration of Norman power one might have expected, given that it was probably commissioned by William’s half-brother Odo, the bishop of Bayeux. Instead, it feels like a requiem."
Read full review →Visit
Bloomsbury, London·View on artmap
