After over 958 years in exile, the Bayeux Tapestry’s impending UK return has reignited old battles – not with swords this time, but with policy papers and heritage funding bids. While the British Museum prepares its display cases for the 70-meter linen chronicle, East Sussex is mounting its own Norman conquest in reverse, demanding the embroidery return to the area it immortalises.
The campaign cuts deeper than tourism economics. For Hastings’ schoolchildren who trace William’s landing at Pevensey on local field trips, and Battle’s pub landlords who serve ale beneath Abbey shadows, this isn’t ancient history – it’s living topography. The tapestry’s woollen threads may be too fragile to travel beyond London, but its imagery remains stubbornly rooted in the chalk cliffs and marshlands between Winchelsea and Rye.
As one Battle resident told us while walking his dog near Harold’s supposed death site: “They teach French kids our history in Bayeux’s museum. Why can’t our kids see it where the arrows actually flew?” The question hangs like morning mist over Senlac Hill – a reminder that cultural ownership remains England’s oldest unresolved conflict. The 70-metre linen chronicle of William the Conqueror’s 1066 invasion – set to display at the British Museum in September 2025 under the landmark Starmer-Macron agreement – has sparked calls for a pilgrimage to “1066 Country”.
Hastings and Rye MP Helena Dollimore has fired the opening salvo in this cultural campaign, co-signing a letter to British Museum chair George Osborne with historian Dan Snow. Their demand? That the southeast coast – where Harold Godwinson fell to Norman arrows and the course of English history shifted – shouldn’t be reduced to a mere footnote in the tapestry’s homecoming.
“This isn’t just about tourism numbers,” Dollimore tells Artlyst, standing near the ruins of Hastings Castle. “When children here study 1066, they’re learning about events that happened in their back gardens. Locking them out of this moment would compound the neglect coastal communities already face.” The letter proposes concrete measures: 1,066 reserved tickets for locals, subsidised school trips, and, crucially, exploring whether sections might temporarily tour Battle Abbey or Pevensey Castle.
The campaign taps into deeper currents. Recent Sutton Trust research ranks Hastings among England’s worst areas for social mobility, with 63% of pupils leaving school without basic English and maths qualifications. “We’ve been living off crumbs from London’s cultural table for too long,” says Sarah Broadbent of 1066 Country Tourism. “This tapestry stitched our landscape into history – now it could rethread our economic fabric.”
Museum logistics present formidable challenges. The embroidery’s delicate state – last displayed outside Normandy in 1983 – makes multi-venue touring unlikely. Yet Dollimore insists: “If Durham Cathedral can host the Lindisfarne Gospels, why can’t we have this conversation?” Her vision extends beyond the loan period, advocating for augmented reality experiences linking tapestry scenes to physical locations across the Weald.
For East Sussex’s historians, educators and hoteliers, the answer may determine whether 2025 becomes a temporary media moment – or the catalyst that finally returns to 1066 back into the national narrative.
Artlyst understands the British Museum will issue a response to the proposal later this month. One certainty remains: after 958 years, the Bayeux Tapestry’s homecoming has reignited England’s oldest cultural debate – who gets to claim this conquest story as their own?
Top Photo: Beat Ruest Wiki Media Commons