How to Embroider History
Richard Cavendish looks at the Bayeux Tapestry in Reading's newly refurbished museum.
The Norman horsemen charge at Hastings once again, and Harold is pierced in the eye with the arrow, as the Bayeux Tapestry goes on display in the newly renovated and reopened Reading Museurn. Well, not the original Bayeux Tapestry. That remains in Bayeux (and is not a tapestry at all, but an embroidery). What Reading is showing off is a unique Victorian copy. All 75 yards of it are unfurled in glowing colour and to splendid advantage around two upstairs rooms.
The original Bayeux Tapestry, a vigorous strip cartoon of 1066 and All That, was embroidered on lengths of linen. It is believed to have been designed by a single person, who also oversaw its production, before 1082 in the south of England (possibly in Winchester, Canterbury or maybe somewhere else in Kent).
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