The Bayeux Tapestry is at the British Museum after a secret journey from France

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Last edited Fri Jul 10, 2026, 10:33 AM - Edit history (1)

https://apnews.com/article/bayeux-tapestry-british-museum-london-b62ee313ab3d4a2e00635587b84a4fbe

The Bayeux Tapestry is at the British Museum after a secret journey from France
By JILL LAWLESS
Updated 3:17 AM CDT, July 10, 2026

LONDON (AP) — After almost 1,000 years, the Bayeux Tapestry is back on English soil.

In scenes like a heist movie in reverse, the priceless medieval artwork was spirited into the British Museum on Friday in the dead of night, after a high-tech, tight-security operation where any slip-up could have spelled disaster.

On loan from its home in France, the tapestry will go on display at the London museum from Sept. 10 until July 2027. It’s a public homecoming for a vivid visual record of the 1066 Norman invasion, the last successful conquest of England.

The tapestry’s arrival in London has been widely anticipated, but due to security concerns all details of when and how it would arrive were kept under wraps.

“It feels extraordinary that after so much work and planning and care and thought that it’s actually happening,” British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan said as he waited outside the museum in the dark.

“It’s the first time in 1,000 years that such an important piece of British — French too — history is going to be on these shores,” he said. “It’s incredibly exciting.”

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https://apnews.com/article/france-bayeux-tapestry-british-museum-loan-c37278964088278ef0e7c70be4806f67

What to know about the Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th century masterpiece of historical record
By DANICA KIRKA
Updated 11:38 AM CDT, July 9, 2025

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Historian’s believe the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William’s half-brother, shortly after the events it depicts. Exactly who crafted it is unknown, though evidence suggests the artisans were Anglo-Saxons, according to the Bayeux Tapestry Museum.

For the first 700 years of its existence, the tapestry was a little known church artifact that was hung in Bayeux Cathedral once a year and stored in a wooden chest at other times. According to local lore, it was almost cut up in 1792 during the French Revolution, but was saved by a local lawyer.

The first public displays of the tapestry took place at Bayeux city hall in 1812.

At the start of World War II the tapestry was placed in an underground shelter in Bayeux for safekeeping. But by 1941 it had attracted the attention of the Nazi’s pseudoscientific ancestral heritage unit, which removed it for study. By the end of the war, the tapestry was at the Louvre in Paris.

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(Bayeux Tapestry Museum)