The Medieval Tapestry That Inspired the ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ Opening Just Crossed the Channel to England and Pulled in $3.3 Million in Ticket Sales in a Single Day

The curved display case housing the Bayeux Tapestry draws visitors close to a scene bearing the Latin inscription ‘WILLELM: DUX IN MAGNO NAVIGIO’ — Duke William aboard his great ship — in Bayeux on September 13, 2019. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images.

The Bayeux Tapestry had never left French soil, and for decades the French had said no every time Britain asked to borrow it. When the British Museum finally got a yes and put tickets on sale for timed 40-minute viewing slots, the first months sold out within hours.

Visitors file past the illuminated Bayeux Tapestry in Bayeux, France, on September 13, 2019, with the nearly 70-meter embroidery’s cavalry procession stretching into the distance behind them. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images.

That rush generated $3.3 million and broke the museum’s single-day sales record, all for a 70-metre strip of embroidered wool and linen stitched almost a thousand years ago.

Angela Lansbury (right) as Eglantine Price and Tessie O’Shea as Mrs. Hobday in a scene from the 1971 Disney film *Bedknobs and Broomsticks*. Photo by FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Images.

If the style looks oddly familiar, that’s the Disney effect. The 1971 musical “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” opened with a long scrolling sequence built to mimic exactly this: stiff-legged figures, running decorative borders, a story that unrolls left to right like a medieval comic strip. Artist David Jonas borrowed the tapestry’s whole visual grammar for that title crawl, so millions of kids met the look decades before they could ever see the real thing.

Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson examine a worn, ancient-looking book at an outdoor market in a scene from the 1971 Disney film ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks.’ Photo by FilmPublicityArchive / United Archives via Getty Images.

The real thing tells the story of 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, crossed the Channel with his soldiers to kill King Harold of England and seize the throne. He won, becoming William the Conqueror. Both the film and the tapestry turn on an invasion of England, which is likely why Disney reached for that grammar in the first place.

A close-up of the Bayeux Tapestry’s ship scene, inscribed ‘HIC NAVIS ANGLICA,’ photographed at the Bayeux Museum on September 18, 2025, just before the embroidery was crated and moved to a secure location ahead of its planned 2026 loan to the British Museum. Photo by Lou Benoist / AFP via Getty Images.

The yes finally came because the tapestry’s usual home in Bayeux is closed for renovation. It couldn’t just be crated up either. Conservators dismantled and packed it with extreme care, then moved it in an air-conditioned, anti-vibration case under French police escort through the Euro Tunnel, arriving at the museum in the middle of the night.

Mounted knights charge across the foreground of the Bayeux Tapestry as visitors holding audio guides line up along the barrier in Bayeux on September 13, 2019, the embroidery’s vivid battle scenes filling the frame. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images.

The exhibition opened September 10 and runs until July 2027, with the tapestry laid flat in one continuous length for the first time. The museum expects roughly a million visitors, and papers are already calling it “Bayeux mania.”

Standing alone at the center of a darkened gallery, a woman surveys a full 87-meter Game of Thrones tapestry displayed on both walls in Bayeux on September 13, 2019, an homage in style and craft to its medieval neighbor. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images.

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