Alistair Hardaker | Image: Hélène Duchêne, Nicholas Cullinan, George Osborne at Piccadilly Circus (Trustees of the British Museum)
British Museum launches Bayeux Around Britain with over 60 partners, plus live-streamed schools broadcast and free lunches for school visitors.
The British Museum has launched Bayeux Around Britain, a national programme linked to its Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, supported by WorldQuant.
The programme works through a network of more than 60 partner organisations, including museums, galleries, libraries, archives, cathedrals and heritage sites. According to the museum, this will ensure Bayeux Tapestry-related activity is within an hour’s drive of two-thirds of the country, with a digital experience available to schoolchildren everywhere.
The programme was launched in Hastings. It will include a digital exhibition pack for partners and a British Museum Spotlight loan of a 19th-century cast of the tapestry, touring to several destinations.
On 14 October 2026, the museum will broadcast live into classrooms across the country through a curriculum-linked event for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 pupils. Delivered in partnership with the British Library, English Heritage and Norwich Museum Service, the broadcast is designed for schools unable to visit the exhibition in person and will include access to experts and a live question-and-answer session.
Grants are available for national partners towards purchasing AV equipment to support the programme’s digital activity. A crafting programme inspired by the tapestry, in partnership with the Crafts Council, will take place in spring and summer 2027.
Every school child visiting the exhibition as part of an organised school visit will receive a free packed lunch, made possible by support from Benugo.
Last year, MP for Hastings and Rye, Helena Dollimore called for the British Museum’s exhibition to be extended to the area. In 2025 Dollimore said “This will be the exhibition of a generation, and our area must be a part of it. Children in my constituency must not be priced out by the cost of a ticket or train fare. What better way to ensure that that does not happen than to have the tapestry visit ‘1066 Country’.”
MP calls for Bayeux Tapestry to be exhibited in ‘1066 Country’
This week, Dollimore said: “Although in Hastings we have often been at the centre of historical events, we have not always felt the benefits. The Bayeux Tapestry’s return to our shores for the first time in almost a thousand years will be the exhibition of a generation, and I pay tribute to all involved on both sides of the Channel.”
The Bayeux Tapestry Presented by Igor Tulchinsky opens on 10 September 2026 and runs until 11 July 2027. General admission tickets go on sale from 1 July.
Activity taking place through the programme includes a loan of the Stothart Cast to Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, large-scale projections of the tapestry at North Lincolnshire Museum, a full-scale facsimile displayed at Tewkesbury Abbey, and an exhibition at the Great Tapestry of Scotland visitor centre in Galashiels.
