In the run-up to the British Museum’s historic presentation of the Bayeux Tapestry, the institution will open “Tapestry of Trees,” an outdoor installation by garden designer Andy Sturgeon. Meant to evoke a medieval woodland, the installation will be composed of plants and trees typically found in East Sussex, where the Battle of Hastings—the primary subject of the tapestry—was fought in 1066 CE.
Visitors approaching the museum’s doors will pass under a canopy of silver birch trees installed in its forecourt. Planters containing other trees and perennials, including hazel, hawthorn, field maples, ferns, and grasses, will continue the forest theme through the colonnade to the main entrance.
Depicting the Norman conquest of England 1100 years ago, the Bayeux tapestry is an astonishing 230 feet long and, according to the British Museum, features 58 scenes, each rendered in colored wool embroidery on flax. The makers of the Bayeux Tapestry (technically an embroidery) made extensive use of botanical imagery in their creation, with trees acting as both story elements and as punctuation between scenes. The installation will not only evoke the tapestry’s depictions of plants, but by wrapping planters and root balls in dyed hessian, it will recall the work’s colors and textures too.
“The Museum is a vast monochromatic monolith, and I wanted the installation to be colorful and uplifting,” Sturgeon said in the museum’s press release, “The trees reach out towards the street entrance as if beckoning it to enter.”
The British Museum said that “Tapestry of Trees” is a prelude to their redesign of the museum’s welcome pavilions and gardens, set to be completed in 2027. Sturgeon’s installation will be on view from May 16–June 2, 2026. On loan from the Bayeux Museum in Normandy while that museum undergoes renovations, the Bayeux Tapestry will be on view at the British Museum from September 2026 to July 2027.
