The Bayeux Tapestry is on its way to England: this is why I think it’s the perfect way to tell history to a new audience

In just under a year’s time, London will be the setting for one of the most famous pieces of royal history of all. The Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of how William the Conqueror won the throne of England at Hastings and changed the country forever, will go on show at the British Museum in the autumn of 2026.

It’s the first time it will ever have been displayed in England. And it’s just as important as it ever was.

In fact, the tapestry is just how people want to take their history right now. It’s visual and almost cartoon like and it was designed to tell the story of how an illegitimate boy rose to become one of the most powerful people in the known world in bite size chunks. This is TikTok but early Middle Ages style.

You can dip in and out of the story as you walk past its very long form – the tapestry is actually 224 feet long. It’s divided into 58 scenes, making some of these history lessons just several seconds long to take in. And it features plenty of characters so one is bound to catch your attention – the British Museum, where it will be on show, puts the number at 626 people depicted. And if you’re not a people person, there are also 202 horses.

To be brutally honest, the Bayeux Tapestry was built for short attention spans. We can be as patronising as we like, almost 1000 years on, and claim it’s because our ancestors couldn’t read or write so had to have the obvious made even more obvious for them with a multi coloured, all action telling of their story. But given our own obsession with attention spans, you can also see the Tapestry as the reels of its day. A one minute burst that kind of stands alone but is also part of the general vibe of that channel and all you need to do is move on to the next panel to get another buzz.

Of course, the huge number of visitors expected (the Museum says it already expects it to be one of the most popular displays it has ever put on and it’s still 11 months away) will all be waiting to catch a glimpse of its most famous scene.

The Bayeux Tapestry helped cement the story that Harold Godwinson, the king William said had his crown, died after being hit by an arrow in the eye. You’ll have to wait until the very end for that bit – it’s the season finale of the tapestry, followed by a grisly scene in which the king’s body is hacked to pieces. You have to give the audience a bit of drama and, for the Harold fans, a moment to weep.

Plus, there’s a cliff hanger. In an age where all seasons need a promise of a new instalment dropping, ready for instant consumption, the Bayeux Tapestry is ready for a modern audience as it ends without a proper conclusion. Historians have long argued that there’s a missing piece at the end of the work and that this would have shown the coronation of William the Conqueror as King of England. However, it never happened or, if it did, it’s disappeared. So you don’t get a conclusive ending from the tapestry.

You do, of course, get it from history instead. William was crowned (it was epic, you couldn’t blame the monks who are thought to have created the tapestry for taking a pass on that one) and he then imposed his own concept of government on his new kingdom and all these centuries on, it still influences us today. Again, quite hard to do in needlework form.

But history is constantly being rewritten and given how close the format of the tapestry is to how we consume everything from media to politics right now, wouldn’t it be great to see some attempt to continue online or on socials the story started with the Bayeux tapestry. It’s a great chance to get a whole new audience engaging with one of the best stories English history has to offer and telling it in a way that suits now. And, actually, that’s just what the tapestry does – it’s talking our language, across 1,000 years in time. So why not talk back.

And that’s why the Bayeux Tapestry remains as important now as it ever was.