The hottest ticket in town is for the Bayeux Tapestry, which goes on display to the public today at the British Museum. It's so hot that the rest of 2026 is fully sold out and January-March 2027 is expected to go the same way when bookings reopen next month. But if you can't wait, or if you baulk at paying £33 for a once-in-a-lifetime blockbuster, an alternative opportunity to view the tapestry exists. It's a full-size full-colour fully-embroidered copy of the original and entirely free to view. To view it all you need to do is go to Reading, make your way to Reading Museum and head upstairs.

Most local museums feature local stuff like clay pots, agricultural tools and something that used to hang outside a pub. Reading Museum has all of this just inside the entrance, also a painting normally held in storage and a table where a nice lady will invite you to handle a fossil. But take the back stairs (or alternatively the lift, assuming they've got it working again) and the most famous Anglo-French strip cartoon awaits your perusal. It's 70 metres long and stretches all around the first floor mezzanine as part of a specially-designed Bayeux Gallery opened in 1992. It's been divided into three sections, the first of which curls around a square landing above the museum entrance. This follows the story as far as Edward the Confessor's funeral, then restarts across the landing above the Story of Reading Gallery. Take your time, there's no queue of paid visitors shuffling behind you here, you're free to enjoy this at your own pace.

The reason why Reading has a replica Bayeux Tapestry is all thanks to Elizabeth Wardle, a Staffordshire sewer who in 1885 travelled to see the original in Normandy. On returning she cajoled 35 members of the Leek Embroidery Society into stitching a full-size copy, having got her husband to dye threads to match the original eight colours. The replica was complete by Whitsun 1886, after which it was toured round England and also shown in Germany and the USA. It happened to be in Reading in 1895 when the Society decided to sell it, thus an alderman bought it for £300 and gave it to the town. It's still here.

Just as you'd currently see in Bloomsbury, the first panel depicts Edward the Confessor despatching Earl Harold to France. The colours are rather brighter in Reading and the background fabric isn't stained, but this particular copy hasn't been stashed in a cathedral storeroom, transported on a cattle truck or hidden from the Nazis. What you also get at both places is a simple explanation of the story unfolding scene by scene - here it's text on a green panel below, at the British Museum it's silent video narration on a screen behind. In an early example of apposite marketing the green panel is sponsored by Norman Insurance, a local company who in 1992 were headquartered by the river. Alas their sponsorship has lasted far longer than the company as they were soon absorbed into a larger company who have themselves been rebranded. Meanwhile the display cases are courtesy of pharmaceutical giant Bayer who are still a significant player in the town, and excellently all the glass is slightly slanted which means every photo comes out with no annoying reflections.

The tapestry takes its time to tell the early part of the story. Harold sets off on a lengthy trek to Bosham and thence across the Channel to land near Beauvais. In lengthy shenanigans he gets captured, gains William's favour by assisting with a battle in Brittany and everyone carries a lot of hawks. Only after Harold has sworn an oath to William is he allowed back across the Channel, and I'm sorry if any of this is spoilers for those of you with British Museum tickets but you should have paid more attention in history lessons. The narrative plays out impressively clearly, such was the skill of those who originally composed it. The central strip has key tableaux which often merge at the edges, say with soldiers marching from one event to the next. Only a ...