Taxpayers could fork out £800million for Bayeux Tapestry loan

Officials have provisionally approved an initial valuation for the artwork, with the final figure expected to reach around £800 million, according to the Financial Times.

Such a sum would make the tapestry worth more than double the highest price ever achieved by an artwork at auction.

The exhibition is scheduled to open in September 2026, with the embroidery remaining on display for ten months until July 2027.

The Government Indemnity Scheme will safeguard the artefact throughout its transportation, storage and public showing, covering any potential losses.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves must formally approve the indemnity before the loan can proceed.

Without this long-standing arrangement, "public museums and galleries would face a substantial commercial insurance premium, which would be significantly less cost effective," the Treasury stated.

The 70-metre woollen embroidery, depicting the Norman conquest of 1066, will travel to London inside a specially constructed crate fitted with vibration monitoring equipment.

French authorities will conduct a practice run of the transfer before the actual journey takes place.

The tapestry is expected to pass through the Channel Tunnel by lorry, with the French state overseeing preparations for the delicate operation.

George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor who now chairs the British Museum's trustees, has described the forthcoming exhibition as "the blockbuster show of our generation," drawing comparisons with previous landmark displays of Tutankhamun and the Terracotta Warriors.

"There is no other single item in British history that is so familiar, so studied in schools, so copied in art as the Bayeux Tapestry. Yet in almost 1,000 years it has never returned to these shores," he said.

Mr Osborne added that "many, many thousands of visitors, especially schoolchildren, will see it with their own eyes" when it arrives next year.

British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan expressed enthusiasm for the collaboration, stating: "This is exactly the kind of international partnership that I want us to champion and take part in: sharing the best of our collection as widely as possible – and in return displaying global treasures never seen here before."

The loan forms part of a broader Franco-British cultural exchange agreed during President Emmanuel Macron's state visit in July, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

In return for hosting the tapestry, Britain will send treasures from the British Museum's collection to France, including seventh-century Anglo-Saxon artefacts from Sutton Hoo and the celebrated twelfth-century Lewis chess pieces.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy welcomed the arrangement as "a symbol of our shared history with our friends in France, a relationship built over centuries and one that continues to endure."

The medieval embroidery, believed to have been crafted by English nuns in the eleventh century, features 58 scenes with 626 figures and 202 horses chronicling William the Conqueror's seizure of the English throne from Harold Godwinson.