The British Museum spent the summer preparing to show the Bayeux Tapestry for the first time in nearly a thousand years. Across town in South Kensington, the Natural History Museum has answered with a seven-metre knitted version starring Shaun the Sheep. It is free, it runs until 1 November, and Tom Daley put in the last stitch.
The Baa-Ewe Tapestry went up in the Darwin Centre on 9 September, the day before the real thing opened at the British Museum. That is not a coincidence, and the museum is not pretending otherwise: Dan Phelan, its director of communications, says the whole thing was “inspired by our friends at the British Museum”. It runs to seven metres against the original’s 70, which makes it exactly one-tenth the size, and it tells the story of Shaun the Sheep rather than the Norman Conquest.
What is actually stitched on it
Halloween, mostly. The film it is promoting is a Halloween story, so the panels run on pumpkin vines, bats and a disco ball strung over a farmyard party, with Shaun trick-or-treating, one sheep dressed as a spider and another going about under a bedsheet. Bitzer and the rest of Mossy Bottom Farm are in there too.
The clever part is the lettering. Where the Bayeux Tapestry carries Latin captions above the action, this one carries puns in the same medieval hand: PARTY FROM DUSK TILL SHAUN, NO EWE-TURN AHEAD, TYING UP LOOSE ENDS. The decorative borders swap out the original’s beasts and ploughmen for carrots, cabbages, pumpkins, potion bottles and hoofprints, and the ten-colour palette is lifted straight off the medieval original, all dull terracottas, olives and blue-greens.
- Seven metres long, 50cm high
- Made by 15 designers and textile specialists
- More than 180 hours of design and stitching
- Over 5km of yarn
- Ten colours, all taken from the original Bayeux Tapestry
Tom Daley knitted Shaun a sweater vest
Daley, Olympic gold medallist and founder of the knitting and crochet brand Made With Love, added the final stitch at the unveiling. He also knitted Shaun a miniature sweater vest reading “Shaun the Sheep”, which turns up in the tapestry’s final section, and a matching one for himself reading “Tom the Human”, which he wore on the day.
“I have waited years for the opportunity to collaborate with Shaun the Sheep,” he said, “so when he asked me to design him a bespoke piece of knitwear, I simply had to say yes.”
Why there is a Shaun the Sheep tapestry in a natural history museum
The film, ultimately. Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is the third feature from Aardman’s Shaun the Sheep franchise, made with Sky and STUDIOCANAL, and it is in cinemas from 18 September. The tapestry is a promotional object and we would normally say so and move on. What makes this one worth ten minutes is where it has been hung and what is happening three miles east.
Our take: the real Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum is ticketed, timed and will be busy until July 2027. This is free, needs no booking and takes ten minutes, and if you have children who are going to run out of patience halfway through 58 scenes of eleventh-century politics, doing the sheep version first is not bad preparation. Go in off Exhibition Road rather than Cromwell Road, where the queue forms, then head west: the Darwin Centre sits in the Orange Zone past the Cocoon, one of the few corners of the building the dinosaur crowd never reaches. If you want the museum itself at its best, be there for opening at ten and go straight up the main staircase, because the view down onto Hope the blue whale from the first landing is the shot and by eleven the staircase is three deep. One date to avoid: the museum closes all day on Friday 9 October for a gala, which falls inside the tapestry’s run.
Need to know
- What: the Baa-Ewe Tapestry, seven metres of knitted Shaun the Sheep in Bayeux style
- Where: Darwin Centre West Wing, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD
- When: until 1 November 2026, including October half-term. Museum open daily, 10am to 5.50pm
- Price: free, no booking required
- Closed: all day Friday 9 October 2026
- Nearest station: South Kensington
More of the same for nothing in our guide to London’s free museums, the rest of the neighbourhood in our Kensington guide, and everything else worth booking this season in our London exhibitions guide.
