Golly, but I've been getting a heinous amount of spam and a lot of it has not been caught by the filter!  Seems my post on an Alternative Tour of London has attracted all sorts of dodgy interest.  Anonymous of Thailand, USA, Malaysia etc.  You know who you are!  Now go away!

Meanwhile, back to Bayeux.

No more on the Tapestry but instead a quick mention of the town museum and the other textile link - lace (or  dentelle in French).

I feel a bit of a connection with 19th Century Lace, simply because my 'home from home' is in the heart of a lace making centre focused around Olney (which itself has a lovely lace museum.)  And I re-discovered that lace makers from Normandy settled in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire around 1685 following religious persecution.

The MAHB museum in Bayeux is worth a visit if you are in the town.  It is housed in the former Dean's House near the cathedral (everything is very centrally located - you can do it all on foot!)

There is a lot covered in the museum (pre-roman, Roman, medieval etc.) but there are also a couple of lovely galleries dedicated to lace.


There is a fine selection of lace ribbon or edging.


Some amazing larger shawls - this is one.  In fact it would have been made in strips which experts then joined together, but you cannot see the join.

And collars.  The one at the back looking turquoise in the photo is actually still mounted on it's pattern paper.

And there are cabinets stacked full of the pattern papers.  I am no lace maker, but I understand that the papers were put over the cushion to mark out where the pins would go to create the pattern.  The process is a wonder.

And finally, the museum also has a collection of pictures.  Most were typical oils of notable local dignitaries through the ages but I also found this.


This is a three dimensional mixed media piece showing 2 fishwives having a bit of a blarney.  The background was painted on card and the bodies and faces made with scaps of textiles.  I love it!  No mention of who did it and I think it is just over 100 years old, but fabulous.

A final post script - I have never met so many Canadians and Americans before in one place.  Bayeux is a place of pilgrimage I now realise because of the Normandy Beaches which are only a few miles away. Many seem to just do the beaches which have fabulous museums, but I know that a few readers of this blog do live across the Pond, so if you are planning to do the Beaches then I urge you to find time to appreciate the textile treasures as well.

Dear reader - I have been away, to foreign shores!

And I traveled light so I didn't take implements of blogging with me, hence the gap between posts.

But this isn't a travel blog (there are some great ones out there by the way and I highly recommend Flora the Explora with a little touch of pride as I used to babysit her from time to time - she is a star and her writing is wonderful).

No, this little corner of Planet Internet is focused primarily on all things textile, with a bit of life thrown in for good measure, and the object of our excursion was a textile one - the Bayeux Tapestry!

If you haven't been - Go!

The tapestry - which isn't a tapestry at all but an embroidery - is staggering on all sorts of levels.  It's length (it was designed to be rolled out along both sides of Bayeux Cathedral); its colours (a bit faded but all achieved with vegetable dye); it's sheer brilliant, pure and unadulterated propaganda message (complete and one sided justification for the invasion of England by William the Conqueror) and most of all the fact that it is here at all!

I came away thinking 'How did that survive?' - how did it not succumb to attacks by moth or beetle or mould?  How did it escape being cut up or reused? (History is turbulent - poor old William himself did not fare so well!  All that is left in his grave at Caen is one leg bone! And there is even some doubt that it is his!  And he was a king - not an embroidery!)  And how did it not get blown to smithereens when the Allies invaded that part of France on D-Day?

Here are just a selection of images.

 This is the very first tableau and shows Edward the Confessor, who was a cousin of both William and Harold, dispatching Harold to Normandy to tell William that he, Edward (who was childless) had chosen Willian to be his heir.  (You see, I told you it was progaganda!)


I cannot particulary remember the significance of this scene but there is hunting with hawks and dogs going on.  Harold was a guest of Williams in Normandy (and went of a skirmish with him too).


I love this tableau for the detail showing them loading up boats.  The men a clearly paddling bare legged in the water.  This isn't the invasion.  This was preparation for Harolds trip to Normandy.


Now that is William sitting on his throne on the left of this tableau and Harold is swearing on two holy relics of some sort that he agreed to William's claim to the throne and that he won't seize it himself.  More propaganda!

You might have noticed that there are top and bottom borders.  All sorts of animals - and as it happens some rather pornographic acts - are depicted there, including two camels and some characters from Aesops Fables.


Edward is being buried in this scene, and two things leap out - the detail of the architecture in the church and the exquisite hand pointing down from the sky.

And in writing this blog entry I have just found that there is a replica - in Reading Museum.  I didn't know that!