Bayeux tapestry arrives on British shores for ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ exhibition

Cloak-and-dagger operation delivers 70-metre medieval artwork to British Museum, as gathered diplomats applaud

Like the man whose conquest of England almost a millennium ago it recounts, the Bayeux tapestry crossed the Channel in the dead of night, in as much secrecy as possible, landing on the country’s south coast early the following day.

The artefact’s arrival on Friday marked the first time it has returned to England in nearly 1,000 years, and British Museum staff will begin to prepare it for exhibition during its year-long loan.

The museum’s director, Nicholas Cullinan, said: “Watching the tapestry arrive at the museum is a moment I will never forget and I look forward to seeing the exhibition take shape over the coming weeks and welcoming the first visitors through our doors this September.”

He added: “This has been a monumental effort from colleagues at the British Museum and our partners in the UK and France .”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said the loan shows what France and the UK “can achieve when they join forces”. Writing in the Times , he said the loan was a “tangible expression of longstanding friendship and a sign of our shared desire to see France and the United Kingdom build their future together”.

The UK culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said: “Make no mistake – this is a historic moment and a significant act of friendship as we welcome this iconic historical tapestry back to Britain for the first time in almost 1,000 years.

“This exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about this pivotal period in our national story and our shared heritage and friendship with France, which endures to the present day. I’m delighted to welcome this tapestry back on to British shores.”

The Metropolitan and Kent police forces escorted the delicate 11th-century work from Folkestone to London in what the British Museum has called “one of the most significant international museum loans ever undertaken between the two countries”.

It arrived in a large yellow lorry just before 3am, having made its way through the empty streets of London. The secretive operation was the result of years of negotiations, tricky logistical planning and multiple technical studies to ensure the integrity of the 70-metre-long (230ft) medieval artwork.

The artefact was folded accordion-style in a climate-controlled case that was placed inside a shock-absorbing cradle. That went into a truck that crossed from France on a vehicle shuttle train through the Channel tunnel.

After an 11-hour trip, the truck backed slowly into a loading bay at the museum, where workers eased the container to the ground. Museum staff and British and French diplomats who had been watching in hushed silence broke into applause.

The priceless cargo will spend several days acclimatising before it is carefully unpacked and unfolded for an exhibition the British Museum expects to be one of the most popular in its 267-year history.

It has said demand to see the “once-in-a-generation exhibition” has been unprecedented – about 100,000 tickets were sold in their first day on sale this month.

About 7.5 million people are expected to go to see the artefact during its time in London from September this year to July 2027. It has been on display at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Bayeux in Normandy since 1983 and will return there when the museum reopens after renovation.

Cullinan said: “It was like trying to get tickets to Glastonbury. I don’t take for granted that people care that much about a 1,000-year-old embroidery. I think that’s an amazing thing.”

Stitched in wool on linen fabric – meaning it is actually an embroidery, not a tapestry – the artwork depicts events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold’s Anglo-Saxon army. The invasion ended Saxon rule, made William the Conqueror the first Norman king of England and bound Britain and France more closely together.

Historians believe the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William’s half-brother, and was probably sewn by women in England – possibly nuns – before being taken across the Channel. It has spent most of the last millennium in the town of Bayeux in north-west France, apart from two short periods when it was at the Louvre in Paris.