A TAPESTRY depicting the 1066 Battle of Fulford is going down a storm in Normandy after being taken on tour by archaeologist Chas Jones.
Chas designed the Bayeux-style work about the Fulford battle - which preceded the other better known conflicts of 1066 at Stamford Bridge and then Hastings - and it took a team of York embroiderers about seven years to complete it.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced at an Anglo-French summit in January that the historical tapestry in Bayeux - which depicts the Norman victory at the Battle of Hastings - was to be loaned to Britain for the first time since it left these shores nearly a thousand years ago.
But Chas had already made arrangements with the French authorities for the Fulford tapestry to go on tour in Normandy this month, and it has just gone on public display in Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, from where Duke William launched his invasion of Britain.
The 5.6 metre long tapestry will next be shown to conservators in Bayeux itself and then to academics at the University of Caen.
It tells pictorially the story of the Norse invasion of 1066, from King Harald Hardrada’s landing at Scarborough, where cottages were burnt, to their travelling down the coast to Holderness and then sailing up the Ouse before landing at Riccall.
The tapestry then recounts their victory at Fulford, followed by their entry into the city of York. The Fulford battle was followed by another at Stamford Bridge and then the crucial Norman victory at Hastings, which changed the course of British history.
Chas said he presented a print of the tapestry to Stephane Haussoulier, the mayor of St Valery sur Somme during a civic reception to welcome the exhibition.
The eight-day exhibition also attracted local schools and colleges, with groups of primary school children able to handle some of the finds from a dig at the Fulford battle site.
He said there had been "overwhelming interest and hospitality" but he found many were surprised that England had had to deal with a Viking invasion in the north in 1066 as well as the Normans at Hastings.
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