Exhibition of a rare 174-year-old Victorian paper facsimile of the Bayeux Tapestry, drawn by pupils at the Percy Street Academy school in Newcastle.
Bayeux-on-Tyne: Drawing the Bayeux Tapestry opened at the Great North Museum: Hancock on 10 October and runs until 17 January, so there's plenty of time to catch it over the winter. It's not the original Bayeux Tapestry coming to Newcastle, but something with a local story of its own: a rare 174-year-old Victorian paper facsimile, held in the library collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle.
The reproduction was commissioned in the early 1850s by John Collingwood Bruce to illustrate a lecture series, and it was drawn by pupils at his Percy Street Academy school here in Newcastle, led by the young John Moffat. It's larger than the original and about five metres longer, and it's largely complete, with only two sections missing. Over the years it's survived in 35 separate rolls, and four of those are what you'll see on display.
There's a bit of a Newcastle history to it, too. In 1884 it was mounted on the walls of the Black Gate, the 13th-century gatehouse to the city's castle, and it actually went missing for a while—it was only rediscovered in the 1990s when the panels were moved to the Discovery Museum at Blandford Square. The display is part of the British Museum's Bayeux Around Britain programme, supported by WorldQuant, and the museum is clear that this is a local reproduction, not the original tapestry travelling to Newcastle.
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Admission is free, and it runs from 10 October 2026 through to 17 January 2027 at the Great North Museum: Hancock.
