History
fanatic spends 18 YEARS hand stitching his own
40ft long version of the Bayeux Tapestry
40ft long version of the Bayeux Tapestry
by Alex Ward, MailOnline
A determined
history buff spent more than 10,000 hours over 18 years hand sewing a tapestry
longer than a tennis court.
Andy Wilkinson, 51,
had no sewing or drawing experience when he started the 40ft long version of
the Bayeux Tapestry, a 1,000-year-old embroidery of events leading up to the
Norman conquest of England.
A London
Underground engineer from Chatham, Kent, he intended to make the tapestry to
decorate the inside of a Norman-style tent but it quickly outgrew the space
when he kept on sewing until he finished the Battle of Hastings section of the
historical tapestry.
Mr Wilkinson has
now been given the chance to display his 2:1 scale version at Battle Abbey in
East Sussex, the site of the 1066 battle.
A member of a
historical re-enactment group, he said: ‘I work a lot of night shifts and used
to come home and find myself with not a lot to do for a few hours.
‘I had seen a
copied section of the tapestry at a medieval fair and thought that if they can
do that so can I.
‘Having never done
a tapestry before, I came home and found a picture and just started to draw and
sew. I had no formal training in sewing or drawing.
'I just drew the
outlines of figures and animals like the horses onto a piece of calico material
and then just stitched it.
‘I have a
Norman-style tent and when the tapestry was under 5ft I used it in that as a
screen but that was a long time ago.’
The original Bayeux
Tapestry is 230ft long, is in eight separate pieces of linen and is exhibited
in the Normandy town of Bayeux. The Battle of Hastings section is 80ft long.
His sewing sessions
lasted from one to eight hours and he believes he has spent an average of two
hours a day for 14 years on the project.
The history buff
used about 30 different shades of four-ply wool and keeps the tapestry wound up
like a scroll on two wooden batons.
On average, there
are about 150 stitches per square inch on his tapestry.
Mr Wilkinson said:
‘I haven't been able to get it insured. I have no idea what it might be worth
but given the man hours I have put in, that alone works out to about £125,000.
‘Now I've conquered
this one I am not going to do another one.’
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