Canterbury City Council says its residents deserve the same priority booking access already offered to people in Hastings and Rother, because the tapestry is widely considered to have been made in Canterbury.
People living across the Canterbury district could find it easier to get hold of tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum — but only if the museum agrees to a formal request made by the council on 4 September 2026. Canterbury City Council wants the British Museum to extend its priority booking scheme to all Canterbury district residents. The city’s current exclusion from an offer already available to Hastings and Rother, the council argues, is an “anomaly” that should be corrected as soon as possible.
The Bayeux Tapestry — the embroidered work depicting the events leading up to and including the Battle of Hastings in 1066 — is widely considered to have been made in Canterbury. Hastings and Rother already receive priority booking because of their links to the battle itself. Canterbury’s claim, as set out by the council, is that the physical tapestry was actually stitched in the city, which it argues represents an equally legitimate connection.
Cllr Alan Baldock, Leader of Canterbury City Council, said the tapestry forms part of a storytelling tradition that is “a source of enormous pride to everyone in this part of Kent”, and warned that the workers behind it risk being forgotten. He specifically highlighted “the workers, especially women” — Canterbury’s seamstresses — as central to his argument for equal treatment.
Baldock placed the tapestry within Canterbury’s broader storytelling tradition, citing Geoffrey Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe, Aphra Behn, Joseph Conrad, Mary Tourtel, W. Somerset Maugham, and television creators Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate — the pair behind Bagpuss and the Clangers — as part of the city’s creative legacy. He argued that without Hastings there would be no tapestry to celebrate, and that “the very same is true of our great city”. Remaining excluded from the priority offer, he said, would be “one in the eye for them, just like it was for poor old Harold.”
Canterbury Newsroom’s release does not record any response from the British Museum at the time of publication. No details of ticket allocations or capacity within the priority scheme have been made available in the council’s statement.
Canterbury Council asks British Museum to give district residents priority Bayeux Tapestry tickets Quiz
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