The 27 panels that constitute the Hastings Embroideries will be on display this summer in Rye in southern England.

The panels have been in storage for decades. Few people have had the chance to see them. They record significant events in English history that occurred between 1066 and 1966. They were stitched by the Royal School of Needlework.

I am having technical trouble including photos for you and refer you to the entry on this site to read more about these unique and magnificent embroideries.

FEBRUARY 9, 2018 BY ANN BERNARD
The Hastings Embroidery.

For details and to purchase tickets, connect with the site below.

Bridgepoint Rye – Hastings Tapestry

Unfortunately, I live in Canada and am no longer able to travel overseas. I would love to hear about your visit. The comment section of this site would be a good place that would enable me to circulate your feedback.

Enjoy! All good wishes, Ann

In response to one of my articles posted in early February, I received a phone call from David Sanderson, Arts Correspondent of The Times in London. He was writing an article about the Hastings Embroideries which is being published today, March 8, 2018.

The Times – Free to a good home… the Hastings Embroidery, rival to Bayeux Tapestry, will be given away – By David Sanderson

The Borough of Hastings are offering the Hastings Embroideries FREE to a good home.  That is, to a home that has space and can preserve them properly for the nation.  Yes, I would love to have them but our apartment is already full of us.  This is a great and exciting offer and I hope that these glorious and historic embroideries will find  a permanent home somewhere in Britain.

It was a pleasure to have a conversation with David and to know that the search is now official.  The article as published is very brief.  The articulate voice of public opinion is needed to locate a new home for these magnificent embroideries that tell the history of Britain.

To add my voice, I am reprinting my original article. Please spread this around.  Permission is given for reprinting this article. Please include an attribute to this author.

Go for it – stitchers and historians.

The Hastings Embroideries were commissioned by Group Captain Ralph Ward, or, the County Borough of Hastings. It was made by the Royal School of Needlework in 1965 to celebrate the 900^th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1966. It consists of 27 panels, each 9′ – 3′ and shows 81 great events in British history that occurred during the 900 years between 1066 and 1966. It took 22 embroiderers 10 months to complete.

Apologies for the quality of these photos.  Screen shots do not give the best reproduction.

This is the first panel and shows King William being crowned at Westminster Abbey. Crowd control was necessary as the Saxon inhabitants were not happy with his take over of England. He built a lot of castles/fortresses including the Tower of London.

The Hastings Embroidery was stitched before the Overlord Embroidery  (1968-69 -70 approx), and is also worked in applique. It uses antique fabrics, modern fabrics, cord, thread, leather and some feathers contributed by the parrots at the London Zoo. I have no information on the designer. It is bright/vivid/colourful and vibrant.

It was given to the town/city of Hastings who currently have two panels on display in the Town Hall. The first picture above is one of these.

Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales

This enormous historical embroidery needs to be displayed in a building that is climate controlled such as the one in which the Bayeux Tapestry is displayed. The Overlord will also be displayed in a climate controlled environment when the Portsmouth Museum reopens the gallery later in 2018.

Hastings says that it is unable to afford a suitable building for this and has been saying so for the last 52 years.

In reality, this is a National Treasure and should be hung in an environment that is part of the British National Heritage. I am thinking of London Museums such as the Victoria and Albert or the British Museum. Maybe there is a suitable venue for it in Windsor? Is there space in Hampton Court Palace which is also the location of the Royal School of Needlework.

Or, could a new building be located in the area of Hastings or Battle become its permanent home.

It is a dramatic and a graphic lesson on British history.

The Hundred Years War.

It would make a wonderful history teaching book both in the Coffee Table size and for School Libraries. For a publishing company, it would be a great marketing tool and some profits could go to helping establish a permanent home for the panels.  With young people already aware of the existence of these panels, it would be on the worthwhile outings list for every school.

Think about it world.

This is a national responsibility.  It is a shame that it remains in storage (apparently in London) rather that being available for the public to see  and enjoy. Maybe the upside of this is that it is stored in a climate controlled space and is not suffering deterioration.

King Henry VIII welcoming the King of France.

One of the final panels is of Sir Winston Churchill on the White Cliffs of Dover.  This makes it a continuous narrative with the Overlord Embroidery. His right hand is making his famous salute and his left hand  holds a cigar.

You will be delighted when you see the real embroideries after being introduced to them via these photos.

A 45 minute film of the complete Hastings embroidery can be viewed at The Hastings Embroidery.

It is worth the time to view it.

Feel free to forward the link to this series to friends and other interested persons. That is, including publishing companies.

Jan 25, 2018 Nikola Budanovic Reprinted from The Vintage News – Jan 26, 2018

First, an answer to a question. Magna Carta Panels; “Get out and get under” photo. Yes, it is unusual to have to do this. It is sometimes necessary when repairing old textiles that cannot be rolled onto the wooden frame bars. In the case of the panels, my guess is that there was something not quite right about some stitching in the central area that needed some attention.

For the first time in 950 years, the famous Bayeux Tapestry will leave its home in France and head for England. The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the artistic wonders of the Middle Ages, depicting the Norman invasion of Britain, the Battle of Hastings, and the subsequent rule of William the Conqueror.

Notice the wind in the sails and the horses marveling at sailing on the sea. Also, that everything, in all these pictures, is proportionally correct and balanced. Then, go and take another look at the battle scenes. The picture below does not show the proportion distortions.

The 224-foot-long panorama, which serves as a priceless piece of history, is currently located in Bayeux, a town in Normandy. A recent announcement by French President Emmanuel Macron that the delicate artifact will be loaned to England has created much excitement and debate on both sides of the English Channel.

The tapestry was originally woven in Kent, in southeast England, somewhere around 1070, by the order of Bishop Odo, William’s half-brother, who intended to use it solely for its narrative potential―after William I made a foothold in England, he claimed the English throne. The tapestry was meant to justify his attempt as legitimate, as he was the victor at Hastings.

A segment of the Bayeux Tapestry depicting Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, (with his bludgeoning mace) rallying Duke William’s troops during the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

The Battle of Hastings was one of the turning points in British history; the defeat suffered by the Saxon King Harold marked the beginning of the Norman period in Britain. The landowning elite were completely replaced by Norman royalty, and so was the culture and the language―Old English was all but lost as a literary language throughout the 11th and 12th century.

William the Conqueror established his rule, but it was plagued by decades of rebellions, uprisings, and civil wars. Even though he crowned in 1066, it was not until 1072 that William’s grip on the country was firm.

The craftsmen who produced the work almost 1,000 years ago remain unknown, but their work is anything but. The tapestry is considered to have exquisite artistic value, as well as historic. The depictions of the horrors of war, which include headless soldiers, King Harold being shot in the eye with an arrow, dead horses, and Normans burning and pillaging villages might be the first ever to challenge the chivalrous image of the period.

It still uncertain which museum will take responsibility for housing the relic. The British Museum in London was cited as the initial host, while the English Heritage Museum, which owns Battle Abbey, built by William himself to commemorate the Battle of Hastings in 1066, claims that the tapestry should, at least temporarily, be displayed at the place where the historical battle actually took place.

The loan is scheduled for the year 2022, when restoration of the Bayeux museum in France will take place. So the tapestry would be sent for safekeeping, but the transport itself is a tricky issue. The millennium-old embroidered cloth is very fragile and the risk of damaging it during transport looms over Macron’s decision.

The current curator of the tapestry, Pierre Bouet, stated for the Guardian that, at first, he considered the news was a hoax, but when it proved to be true, his skepticism increased: “If you were to ask my advice, despite the regard I have for my English colleagues who I have worked with for many years, I would say no.”

On the other hand, both the Heritage Museum and the British Museum are thrilled with the prospect of the return of the medieval masterpiece to England. Rowena Willard-Wright, a senior curator at English Heritage, implied in her interview for the Guardian that the tapestry should be located outside London:

“The problem for the British Museum is what you might call the Tutankhamun effect: people end up queuing all the way into Russell Square. If people have to queue, where better than the Sussex countryside?”

The staff of the British Museum consider the 70-meter-long panorama too fragile to be moved from one place to another, and that it would be safest to keep it in one place. Michael Lewis, a curator, claims that conservation and practical difficulties would make the tapestry impossible to tour.

Related story from us: Off to the ‘holy places’: pilgrimages during the Middle Ages

However, the British Museum in London considers the artwork pivotal and would like to make it accessible to as many people as possible. The decisions on where it will be housed, and even if safe transportation will be possible, are yet to be made. Until then, the tapestry remains exhibited in the Bayeux city museum, in the picturesque countryside of Lower Normandy’s department of Calvados.

This is all very exciting and not even contemplated publicly when I started writing this sequential account of Embroideries that Record History. I will be taking a further look at the resurgence of Large Embroideries in future postings.

This is all very exciting and not even contemplated publicly when I started writing this sequential account of Embroideries that Record History. I will be taking a further look at the resurgence of Large Embroideries in future postings.

It is time for me to return to stitching which has been neglected lately. I hope that you have enjoyed reading and seeing these photos and videos. I have tried hard to be accurate but have undoubtedly made errors all of which were unintentional.

Comments are welcome, bye for now, Ann B.

Tomorrow is the 76th Anniversary of the allied invasion of Normandy.  It is commemorated in the Overlord Embroidery.  As traveling is not possible at the moment, we can all visit the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England via video footage.  But first, some facts and background.

The Overlord was commissioned by Lord Dulverton in 1968, designed by Sandra Lawrence, a 22-year-old artist and stitched by 20 professional embroiderers at The Royal School of Needlework.  This took 5 years.  It was presented to the nation and was first shown in Londons Guild Hall.  As stated by the commentator, the Embroidery was looking for a permanent home at the time.  The following video takes us on a tour of its first showing.

A permanent home was found in the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth.  This city is full of naval interest from the Mary Rose from the 1600s up to HMS Nelson and HMS Warrior.  Portsmouth was one of the main staging locations for the fleet that sailed overnight to Normandy.  Ships, equipment, and supplies were sequestered all over southern England and Wales.  It was a huge operation and every possible harbour was used.  The tides, moonlight and the weather determined the date of the invasion.  Diversionary information that the invasion would be in the area of Calais was leaked.

The following video gives a walking tour around the Overlord Embroidery.  It is now housed in a facility that is temperature and humidity-controlled.   The lighting is subdued to protect the fabrics so it is hard to see detail but this tour will give you an idea of its size.  There are 34 panels that measure 272 feet in length.  The full size painted design panels created by Sandra Lawrence are on display in a mail entry hall in The Pentagon.

The final video is a talk from Tracy Teasdale who knows the embroidery well and gives a detailed account of the making of the Overlord Embroidery.  This is the most interesting and informative of the videos.  There are lots of still photos online for you to find and view.  To see photos of individual panels, go to

Images of Overlord Embroidery

There are many historical embroideries around Britain and the world.  They were all created with dedication.  If you are planning to make one, first, I beg you, find and secure a location where it will be permanently displayed.  The design should be totally special and a professional designer is advisable.  Displaying it costs money and funding this should be considered during the planning stage.

We must all be aware of the Hastings Embroideries which lack a display location and have been in storage for decades.  Initially, they were displayed on the pier with the ocean waves just below.  Now, a few panels only displayed in Hastings Town Hall.  After your labour of love and tribute, please avoid this happening to your historical embroidery.

 

Almost almost everyone will know of the Bayeux Tapestry, an enormous embroidered frieze which recorded the events of the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But the Bayeux Tapestry is not the only piece of epic embroidery undertaken to commemorate a major event.

In the city of Plymouth in Massachusetts, USA, a team of dedicated embroiderers and historians decided to create something to rival the Bayeux Tapestry in order to mark the 400th anniversary of the pilgrim’s arrival on their on the shores in 1620.

Putting stitches into one of the early panels.

The final design will consist of 20 panels each measuring 6 feet in length.

Right from the outset there was recognition that the project had to tell two stories. Although the pilgrims had arrived on the Mayflower in November 1620, the land they arrived on was not uninhabited. The Wampanoag people had lived on the land for thousands of years and their history was a fundamental part of local lore.

As such, a number of historical contributors were recruited to determine the narrative of each panel, the most appropriate imagery to tell the story, and the total timeline to be displayed

A panel with threads and wools selected. and example stitches sourced. (source).

Elizabeth Creeden, a talented local needlework designer, was appointed to make the drawings and plan the embroidery for each panel. This required research, consultation and many preliminary drawings. Elizabeth would work on one panel at a time, finally making a drawing to scale on paper the same size as the linen it was to be printed on.

Elizabeth Creeden at work (source).

This drawing would then be sent to Trustworth Studios who printed it on the linen – no easy task. Although when the first panels started coming back, the accuracy of the print was such that there  only a variation of a single thread across the entire 6 feet!

As you can imagine, completing such a project would mean thousands and thousands of stitching hours.

But right from the start it was determined that the stitching would be a communal task. Over the years since the project started, panels have been taken to conferences, workshops and meetings to allow all members of the public to contribute.

Embroidery has been done by children and adults, women and men, highly experienced embroiderers and people who have just started out. Although guidance was given to maintain a standard of quality across the peace, Elizabeth Creeden deliberately designed each panel with stitches simple enough that anyone could learn how to do them and play their part.

Stitchers working together. (source).

Although the opportunity to attend the public workshops have now passed, there are still panels being worked on with the entire project expected to be completed and assembled in 2021

While the celebration date for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower is in November 2020 a lot of the story of the pilgrims survival occurred in 1621 so the time scale is still on track.

A number of the completed panels will be on display as the November celebrations get closer. But the final, completed tapestry will be the one to see once it’s all put together.

A completed panel  (source).

Not only will the completed tapestry tell the story of the pilgrims, the Wampanoag people and the development of the area, but it will create a memorial which is sure to still be admired in 1000 years time, just as the Bayeux Tapestry is today.

To read more about this amazing project, you can read an article in the Embroiderer’s Guild of America or check out the Pilgrim Hall Museum and website.

Reprinted from Inspirations Newsletter   news@inspirationsstudios.com

This electronic newsletter is published every Friday and originates from Australia.

Contact them to be on their emailing list.  Always interesting content.

This multifaceted embroidered tapestry was gifted to the City of Toronto on March 4, 1984 by the Toronto Guild of Stitchery on the occasion of the 150th (Sesquicentennial) Anniversary of the founding of Toronto.  I cannot give you a photo of the whole piece as it is just too large.  Here is the first pair of environment panels and the beginning of the frieze. They show that the city was once forested.  The aboriginal tribes met here between the mouths of the rivers that empty into Lake Ontario.  In fact, Toronto is ‘meeting place’ in Mohawk.

You can see the Indians in the frieze and the first settlers cutting down the trees for a settlement.  The end panels are a stylized design of the coats of arms of the city of Toronto.  They are worked on canvas using a wide variety of stitches. (The white circle is a paper punch hole).

Let us start at the beginning.  Two of the members, Ivy Clark and May Horn had been on a trip to England where they saw the Hastings and the Bristol Embroideries.  They came home with a bright idea.  With a big anniversary coming up for their city, they suggested the guild members create a tapestry telling the history of Toronto.  In their honour, it is dedicated to Ivy and May.

Little did any of the members realize what they were undertaking.  A design competition was held which was won by Barbra Gordon, a student at the Ontario College of Art. She was the winner of the Gold Medal that year.

Barbra Gordon. 1984

Members did historical research and their findings were incorporated into the design.

This was 1977 which is now 42 years ago.  The guild members had 6 years to complete their gift.  Assistance with the funding came from The Trillium Foundation but the membership raised half the cost of the materials and other essentials.

You can see this embroidery for free. The Cafe on the Square is located on the ground floor of City Hall.  Behind the cafe, you will find a corridor.  A curved staircase goes down to the lower level.  The Toronto Historical Embroidery is hanging at the base of those stairs. It has its own lighting system and is protected by a clear plexiglass cover. There is also an audio presentation.

These first panels show the forest that was there in 1793 and has now become the city of Toronto. The elliptical shapes echo the clamshell architecture of City Hall which was completed in the early 1960s.

Once the maquette was complete and coloured by the designer, the members formed teams to focus on the many facets of the undertaking.  They had to make a master tracing.  The tracing was then copied and patterns were made for each piece of fabric in the upper and lower panels. There were many hundreds of pieces.  Each one was numbered, balance marked and a grainline arrow added so that the fabric was cut grain perfect. Look back at the panels and note the complexity of the design.  Each piece of fabric had to be the correct colour and positioned exactly in place. The upper and lower panels were assembled using machine embroidery and it was a big job.  Marie Fenwick, was the organizer for making the panels and also did a considerable amount of this embroidery.

To give a concept of the size. the section you have seen is under 3 feet wide and 6 feet high.  The whole Embroidery is 24 feet long and 6 feet high.

This is the first of a series about the actual creation and stitching of the Toronto Historical Embroidery.  As such, it is rare.  We see completed pieces of embroidery but have no idea of what was involved in creating them.  Happily, there are photos and, despite it being 40 years ago, there are a few survivors to share the experience with you.

Please share these blogs with friends, other stitchers and those who would be interested. Let me know if you would like to be directly on the mailing list.

Postings are planned for every two days.  Enjoy!

Comments are welcome.