Gone Medieval - How to Make the Bayeux Tapestry

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

What connects the Bayeux Tapestry and a Cheshire silk-producing town?Dr. Eleanor Janega makes a special visit to Macclesfield to uncover its medieval past as a royal borough associated with Edward I and Eleanor of Castile. To celebrate the Bayeux Tapestry's arrival in Britain, the community has crafted a stunning "Macclesfield Tapestry" using traditional Bayeux stitches and natural dyes. Listen in as Eleanor explores a medieval dye garden, weaves on a historic loom, and meets the passionate local embroiderers bringing this incredible collaborative artwork to life.MOREThe Bayeux TapestryListen on AppleListen on SpotifyAfter 1066: The Harrying of the NorthListen on AppleListen on SpotifyGone Medieval is presented by Dr Eleanor Janega. Edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcastHistory Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™Want even MORE history? Watch Eleanor's series Meet the Normans on History Hit. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week PLUS early access, ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianica and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. we delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were.

And how we got here. Not many episodes of God Medieval opened with me on an inner city train, hurtling towards the northwest of England. But hurtling is exactly what I am doing just now. Firstly, because this train is going very, very fast. And secondly, because I am so hyped that my adrenaline might get me there before the train does. I'm heading for a town in Cheshire, which lies 16 miles south of Manchester. It's famous for silk. But I'm coming because I've been promised a glimpse of the bayou tapestry.

Now, what? I thought the bayou tapestry was on show at the British Museum. And look, I know the cues are long, but this is ridiculous. Well, listen on. Today, Gone Medieval is visiting Macklesfield. A town whose later industrial history made it so famous, that it almost obscured a much older story. Long before the great dieworks of the Industrial Revolution,

McElwield was a royal burrow on the edge of a vast hunting forest, shaped by one of the most powerful royal couples of the Middle Ages. In 1254, the future Edward I gave the manor and forest of McElwesfield to his new wife, Eleanor of Castile, as part of their marriage settlement. Within a few years, the settlement was expanding. A royal charter in 1261 gave McElstield its own market, courts, and borough status. Eleanor founded the All Saints Chapel here in 1279, and more than seven centuries later, Pericastelian arms can still be seen carved above the entrance of what is now St. Michael's Church.

Now, I'm not leaving McElwold without seeing that, I assure you. There was even a castle, a fortified residence from which royal officials administrated the surrounding forest. The building has disappeared, but it is still remembered through the aptly named Castle Street. Today, Macklesfield's medieval past is being stitched into the town's identity. Its famous connection with textiles may have come centuries later, but local embroiderers helped create an extraordinary Victorian replica of the bayou tapestry in the 1880s. So to mark the arrival of the original biotapestry on British shores, and, as part of the British Museum's Bayou Around Britain Initiative,

the good people of Macclesfield have come together to create their own tapestry, a new community embroidery, which brings these two histories together, medieval McElwifield and the generations of skilled hands that made this one of Britain's great textile towns. So today I'm going to be learning how you would go about making your own bayou tapestry, as well as following the traces of queens, castles, churches and royal forests to discover the medieval town hiding beneath the modern one. Now approaching Macclesfield.

When leaving us here, make sure you have all your luggage and belongings with you. And please mind a step down to the platform. Well, here we go. Macklesfield has come into view and, all being well, I'm going to be met here by Becca Smith, director of the new Macclesfield School of Art and poet and historian Elsa Holland who have invited me here today. Hey, how are you?

Hi, good. I'm Ailsa. I'm Eleanor. I'm back. Welcome to McElstead. Hey, yeah, here. It's my first time in McEltsville. Very excited.

Yeah, the Silk Museum's just about five minute walk. Oh, bro. Yeah, no, we should absolutely walk. And look, it's stop raining. Say, so can you save? I'm very, very excited to step inside. It's a gorgeous building, like, lovely Victorian thing. Oh, I like that it actually has the VR for Victoria Regina on top of it.

So this was Macclesfield School of Art. Oh, which wasn't built as a fine art school, but as a place to train silk designers and embroiderers and I think also more kind of technical things to do with the silk trade. Very Victorian. No, we love this. Yes, this is great. Sometimes younger workers who would work in the silk mills from the age of 12, they would sometimes come here as part-time students

and do like evening courses. And some of them became like really good and famous designers. It was one of the most prestigious art schools in the country early of 20th century, so we're keeping that alive. I think that's really important because we have a tendency, I think, when we relate to the concept of art or even

training about art, to think of it as fine art, which is something that is really captured by the upper classes of society. And this is the thing, is it arts for the working class too. Absolutely. Come on. Well, Elsa and Becca, I suppose the best place to start is by asking

why McElstfield? What is it about McElstleville that makes it such a great place to have a huge embroidery project like this. We're known as Silk Town and a town of a long heritage of craft and textiles and embroidery. And we're only seven miles away from the town of Leak in the Staffordshire, Morlands. And that's where the first full-scale bio tapestry replica was created by Lady Elizabeth Wardle and her group of stitches. So Lady Elizabeth Wardle got together 35 women

from the Leake Embroaderie Society and they recreated in exact scale the biotapestry. But they used photographs provided from the South Kensington Museum, which is the V&A. And those photographs were taken by some guys and those men censored those photos. So they thought that the Ladies of Leap might perhaps not be, want to see those.

They might, yeah. But the reason talking about that is because we have a replica piece here. We have a duplicate piece, actually. It's not missing from the entire tapestry, the leek tapestry. It's a duplicate piece and we have it in our collection. So that was a connection to Bayer Tapestry. Yeah. And then we just both have a great passion for medieval history and literature and art.

And then Becker was one of the organizers of, it was actually leaked textile week a couple of years ago and I ran a couple of workshops there but also went to a workshop teaching the Bayer stitch and got totally obsessed by it and spent the whole winter. Stitching, yeah, stitching various embroideries which are now scattered around my house. So then when we heard that the Bayer was coming to London, we said, well, let's do a medieval textile project and McElwold is the perfect place to do it because it's a great community and there are loads of creative people here. And it's really easy, I think, to organise community events here.

Out of everywhere that I've worked as an artist and the community artist, people will get other people involved. There's a great community. And that's one of the main reasons why it worked, I think. So tell me a little bit about the project. What is the McElwield tapestry? I think the initial idea was to present a map which crossed the last 900,000,

50 years. So we could have an element of structure and then we could have people suggesting buildings. Maybe at one point we probably went through the point like suggesting that people could put their own house on and then kind of thought, no. So there's lots of, yeah, there's lots of versions. So from that, we created the structure where there's a central map to the McLeod's History Tapestry. And that map shows buildings.

which existed before the conquest, actually. And then Ailsa's idea to put narrative scenes in to get that sense of action. Yeah, so again, in a bit of a homage to the Bayer, but to give that sense of things that had happened in Macclesfield over the last 900 and however many years, and then to put the top and bottom borders in. So again, the structure had that nod to the Bayer,

to create a work that celebrates Macclesfield's past, but also celebrates its current inhabitants and what they can make and how they can work together and to make a nice thing. Oh, I love this because I'm a huge believer in the fact that we can change the quality of our experience through effort and art, and that it's what really makes people, people.

And I think it is, you know, the thing that connects us with people in the past as well. This desire to make a beautiful thing this even in times of strife. Yeah. Well, listen, I absolutely cannot wait to see it. So can we go have a look? Yeah, sure. Oh, it's so bright that the minute you walk in the room,

your eye just goes directly to it. Oh, this is the Machincipity tapestry. Oh, there's so many different elements to it. And I really like how it has things that I recognize from the bayou tapestry, Haley's Comet, the little birds that you see. Along the ends, for example. But then obviously you've got a bunch of cool McElchfield stuff in the middle.

Yeah. Yeah. What are we looking at here? I see in the top left-hand corner we've got a bit of a battle scene. Is this like a composite of what you see out in the Bay of Tapestry? This is a representation of the harrying of the north. Oh, yes. Finally, let's talk about it.

Yeah, brilliant. So, after looking at the Doomsday Book, Ailser and I decided that we needed to show. that the harrowing of the north did affect Macclesfield and did come to Cheshire. So I designed this piece and I did take some elements from the biotapestry. You might recognise the mother and child there. Yes. You were depicted in a boning building in the biotapestry.

And then there's a couple of Norman guys from other places. And then I just added some Macclesfield guys there. He's been beheaded. Mm-hmm. And the ox has been killed. Yeah. And there's another animal there. Because we know that when the harrying of the north happened, when it came, that they didn't only attack property and people, but that they also killed the farm animals, salted the land, made it impossible for people to feed themselves.

And so we wanted to kind of depict that whole story. And as it were, it's what happens after the Bayer tapestry finishes. I think that's so important because there is this tendency, I think, to look at the Norman conquest in England as simply. something that happens as a result of the Battle of Hastings. When you have the herring of the North, which a lot of scholars, myself included, characterizes a genocide, right? You know, because that's what happened,

is that people got a little bit to Oppity for their own good up here, and so they just went for it. And, you know, still the population of the North hasn't recovered. It never has. It says that, and we know for a fact that there was a higher population pre-conquest, and it's a really uncomfortable fact of a medieval history. It is not just glorious nights having a battle.

It's what happens after it. And I think a lot of the time it's treated as unimportant because it happens to ordinary people. Yes. So, yeah, I think that's so crucial to talk about if we are going to talk about the conquest. So that's terrible vibes. But underneath it, I love this.

We've got some people on hunting horses. Is that what I've seen? Oh yes, this is Edward I. Anna Eleanor of Castile. Woo, woo, who. Yes. So really, I mean, Elsa, you insist that they needed to be on there. Yeah.

And this is kind of your piece, I think of it. I mean, I decided, but you stitched it. Yeah, I stitched most of it. And then I passed it onto someone because I was doing a lot of other stuff. But they had to be on there because we know that they spent quite a lot of time in Macklesfield and hunted in the forest here. There was quite a lot of royal dispatchers were central Mcclesfield. and Eleanor was a lady of the manor here

and gave the money for the church here, which is now St Michael's, but when she founded it, it was all saints. And the Castile coat of arms is still above the church door. And the harrying of the north and this sort of royal connection is stuff that people in Macclesfield just generally don't know and we wanted to bring out a lot of Macclesfield's medieval history. I really like that because, well, I'm an Eleanor of Castile partisan.

on. But I think that it is quite interesting because a lot of the time when we look at history about Eleanor, you talk about the Eleanor Crosses, obviously, and quite rightly, too, they're super, super interesting. But we don't talk as much about what she does during her life. Yes. I think, and she is an incredibly involved queen. You know, she's so involved in changing taste in England. You know, the person who brought carpets to England. Yes. Which is such a funny thing. But it's like, that was Eleanor. She did that, you know, and she really updates the way that they do gardens. So she has all of these real cultural impacts, including building the church in Macklesfield. That's a big deal.

Yeah, really big deal. I mean, they hunted in Mackersfield Forest, which is why we depicted them in the forest. I really like the trees. Oh, thank you. And I think there's an 18th century map that has the fantastic little location, the chamber in the forest. And that was a hunting watch. And we've got some evidence that that goes back to their time and they would have used it.

Oh. So Eleanor's in front there, and she's pointing in. Edward has a hunting horn and they're riding under the stars. And the stars that I put into the design are from Westminster Abbey above their paintings next to their tomb. So they're a little reference to that. And it connects to the panel underneath. And there is some evidence.

So the panel underneath... We've got three archers. Yes. And they are also in a forest, which in Macclesville Forest. And there's evidence that Eleanor built the touch. church or gave money to build the chapel of all saints as a thank you to the bowmen who were the best at the time. The Cheshire archers were known but the Bowman from Macclesfield were apparently used in their Welsh campaign. Yes and a hundred of them were the king's personal bodyguard.

Wow. So when we go up to the church later, there's a little carving that I'd never seen and it looks like a little archer and it's on the north side of the tower. So some local historians are kind of connecting it's to say, Ellen and put this little archer on. Oh, I love that. So these are the Cheshire Bowman, and they fought at Poitier. Mm-hmm. Asian core. Asherrise.

I imagine, yeah. And had a bit of reputation. Apparently, for a long time, it was a threat of French parents to their children. You know, if you don't behave, I'll set the Cheshire Archers on you. Oh, I've lost it. Historically they'd left, you know, not such a good memory. Listen, they are an army, you know. They're not exactly covering themselves in gloating.

in terms of what locals think of them. No. But then, okay, listen, our central panel, then, this is McEltsfield. Yes. Yeah. This is a sort of trans-historical map of McEltsfield, if you like. So some of the buildings still exist. Some of them don't anymore.

So we're here. Oh. This building here depicted is the Macclesfield School of Art. Brilliant. And it's in an area which we've represented to show that it was a green. It was called Park Green. Yeah. And it was a nice big area with the Bollin river next to it.

And die houses, which actually is still there too. That's still there. How cool. There are dye houses. But this is the area. When we were walking on before and I just said, you know, there's a lot of cars here now. Yeah. You think about how that was open.

And that's where, even into the Victorian era, you know, it was lovely. And there's a water fountain and a bandstand and now it's all car parks. Pedestrianize it. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what's about it?

Because I really love this little house. looks as though it's almost a gouty or something. Thank you, because I do love that too. That represents the castellated mansion that was built by John de Macclesfield. He was in quite a high official cleric to Richard II

and he asked Richard II for permission to build a big townhouse with turrets and castellated elements, so it wasn't ever built as a fault. But when people talk about Macclesville Castle, they think of that. Really, parts of that were still

around to the 1930s. There are little bits of it around and recently on a pub very close by, I could the castle. It's like a pewter shield that was uncovered on the side of the pub this year with the coat of arms of John de Macclesfield.

And it's not even rusted, it's incredible. I was walking on, it's a tiny little cobbled street and I was walking on on there in May this year and looked up. And just a bit of a wall's been removed when it was there. So it's still very much part of Maxwell's history and it had to go on our tapestry. Okay. And then we've got some churches, surely. Yes. So this is St. Michael's,

which was all saints. So that was the church from Eleanor of Castile. And this is the Savage Chapel, which is a chapel and then a tower above it where an anchorass used to live. Oh, we love an anchorest that way. Oh, fantastic. And then this is the Anglo-Saxon Earl's Palace. And this is the Norman Castle, which is now B and Q. See, I think this is really important because with this gorgeous tapestry. It's wonderful to look at. And it's got all these disparate elements. And it just makes me think about how different the experience would have been for the people who were working on the actual biotapestry because biotapestry is a little bit thinner in terms of what is embroidered on it, but it's so long. It's so, so long. And we've lost a bunch of it,

Right. So when I think about how many women were stitching away embroidering that and how this piece of work is 100 people. Yes. It makes you realize how long it must have taken to do the biotapestry because how long did this take? So the project was about six months, wasn't it? Yeah. And we did give people kits to take home. So quite a lot of people working on that piece of home. There's a good few hours. Each little element, you know, the windmill or the trees were.

depending on people's skill because a lot of people who stitched this had never stitched before or for like 70 years as what if our lady says. She said it's the last time I stitched I was 10 and I'm 80 and then part of the planning came from

Ailsa and my love of medieval Mathisfield and kind of wanting to dig deeper into it and I think that was a really great part of it but that was still a big part of it was getting the design going, we're going to have a map in the middle, we're going to have the scenes, scene's going to be. We're going to have borders top and bottom. Yes, and the borders

in homage to the Bayer. And then just managing the response because we did have a really big response of people who really, really, really want to take part and we had our first info meeting. Yeah. We just thought, oh, a few people will come along and we had like 50 people. You know, somebody said, oh, I want to do something and we were, you know, the mushroom, for example, which has become one of the best loved things was Becker in a corridor and somebody saying, oh, I'll just do something. And Beck and just draw you a mushroom. I love it. I love. that mushroom too is so cute. So yeah, no, it must have

taken them a really, really long time. And obviously not such good conditions as, you know, not in their lovely, centrally heated, whatever. Yeah. I suppose a differentiation is probably that whoever was working on it, that was their job. So I suppose they probably had hours a day to do it, as opposed

to in their spare time. It's coming back from a job. But still, it does tell you a lot about the number of hours that something like this takes and what we see as a result of it. Yeah. And to see the biotapestry.

To really connect to it. To see how the elements like the burning house, to see that which I've studied and then reinterpreted, it's so familiar. It felt like seeing a really old familiar friend. Yeah. I think. And I hope that everybody who's stitched this has got the same connection.

Yeah. They've got a connection you just don't have from looking at it or reading about it. You've made it. And you thought of it. Yeah, it was actually really weird because as we looked at it and obviously we wanted to stay in there longer, we weren't allowed to. And as we walked out, I just sort of looked back at it.

And without thinking what I was saying, I just said, oh, well done ladies. And it was just that real feeling of, oh. Well, so the first time I saw it, I cried. Yeah, no. You know what you do? You do have this emotive response to it, you know? And you have this really big connection to it as a historical object. and it's something that you study and that you learn about.

And there's just nothing that beats actually seeing these things in real life because you get the impression that you know what you can see when you look at the Magalsale Tapestry here is you can see every little stitch. And that's also true of the Bayou tapestry, whereas pictures of it just don't do it justice, you can't really get a sense of it in the same way. So I think you're right. There's nothing that really beats doing it yourself to understand what it takes.

Yeah. Yeah. I think a really important thing to point out is you know you have this big process of stitching and embroidery like the Bayou tapestry but actually if you want to do something like that you have to start even before you are stitching itself in the medieval period you got to start growing things don't you and I heard tell that you are doing that here and you have a die garden we do have a medieval diegarden yes please okay so right

next to the museum we have over 26 plants that give colour and those plants have been used since medieval times and they would have been used in the biotapestry. For this project we decided to get a horticulturalist in who has done an amazing job getting it especially ready for this week for your visit Eleanor and her name's Lisa. Hello hello Oh my gosh, thank you so much for this. I am unreasonably excited because I love a bit of a die garden myself. I love a matter plant. I'd love to see what can be grown.

I imagine there's woad involved, you know? So we've got some woad just here in that planter, which we've been grown for a few years now. Luckily, it's self-seeding everywhere, which it tends to do. Oh, fantastic. Because it's quite wild and the seeds just throw everywhere. So we keep finding it in all different. places, but that plant will actually grow really, really tall. When it flowers, it goes up to a meter tall. Wow. You need to harvest the leaves in the first year. That's what gives it the best

blue dye. I suppose that this explains why blue is such an incredibly popular color for people to have in the Middle Ages if Wode grows easily. Yeah, definitely. Anything that can just take out the worry about the plant. I think there was a worry at one point that it was being grown too much. And of course, needs the fermentation process to make the blue dye work and you know people used to use urine for that so it's quite a smelly messy process yeah many things are yeah so we've also got our lovely madder which looks quite insignificant actually but it's one of the few plants that produces such a vibrant red so you get it from the roots So you grow it and then ideally you could start harvesting the roots after two or three years

and you can actually sort of dig them up and prune the roots off and then regrow them. So it'll be really good to see our matter in a few years time and see how it, you know, the colours it's going to produce because I'm sure Becca, she'll want to get hands on that, weren't you? It's very exciting. Would you like to try and get a little bit of woe? greeny blue on some Maccasfield silk. Oh my gosh, yes. Can I room some out to you?

Is that okay? I'll be one fact. Ooh, she's got some woed. All right, okay, so it looks like Becca has prepared for us some woe. So Becca, what are we going to do here? Right, so I picked some of the leaves, which, as Lisa said, this woad has self-seeded around the garden. Yeah.

And it was so cool because we were like, if they're going to be enough for Ellen to actually do this. and then we found it just everywhere. Everywhere. And it's amazing. So I'm taking the leaves and they're really nice, like big leaves and I'm ripping them up. So and then I'm going to add a little bit of salt to each pot that I've put them in. And the salt doesn't do anything chemically.

It just grinds. It's basically a way of kind of grinding. Yeah. So what I'm going to do and as well, Do you guys want to try that one? There. I might get a little bit of water and in a sack I'll pass this over to you both.

I might just need to get water, sorry. I'll just be one sec. I'll get a tiny bit more water. It smells very green. It does, doesn't it? So, Ron, because we're making blue. Can I put a little bit of water in there, Elsa? Oh, you...

Yes, here we go. Your hands are going to go blue. My hands are going to go blue. I'm going to like some sort of... Okay, so now, if the first thing that's happened as soon as Becca, added the water in it, it's going very green immediately, but it's got a sort of blue tinge to it in the leaf now suddenly? So that is the pigment. It's basically the same chemical construction, really, as indigo. Ah, so it's our indigo, yeah, basically. So to get that blue, that blue,

it is, as Lisa said, a fermentation process, which you can use urine, you don't have to, but you can. If you really want it. Why are you looking at me like that? I don't. This is a way of getting a little bit of that pigment out really quickly when you need to. So would you like to try it, Eleanor? Do you want gloves or just want to? No, I'm going straight in.

I'm going straight in. Listen. Enjoy it. Yeah. Listen, I'm a hands-on type of girl. These are Macclesfield silk scarves and there's one each of you guys. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

colour they go because they're actually already dyed a little bit grey. So you can see the silk that you're using to rub into the wode leaves is white and it's just been prepared, it's been mordented and mordanting is the process that any natural fibre that's going to be dyed needs to go through. And that's using an alum salt and it helps all of those molecules of colour to bind with it. So this silt's been prepared. You don't have to have. to fix it afterwards. Oh, exciting. Okay, so we've done some dyeing. What's the next step in the process? So, we can show you the bio stitch. And you can try that. We'll give you a picture. I think you've requested a hell's mouth. I can't imagine who would have requested a hell's mouth.

So we could do that. So Becca's drawn that for you on some linen and we can get some wool out. You can choose some colours and we'll get stitching. Let's go. So we've gone back inside to do some stitching. What do we need to do first here? Well, we have a linen, and that's just undired linen. That's the same material as the biotapestry. So this is a bit of a coarser linen. The bea is quite fine, but nevertheless is the same. And it has to be under tension for this stitch.

So that's hence the embroidery hoops. Hence the embroidery hoops. So they would have probably had the bea on like a big frayne, but we've kind of got the domesticated version of that, if you like. Yeah, and we have our wall. Oh, okay, so we have to pick out what to do it. Yeah, so this is cruel wool. Listen, I'm frightfully partial to this orange.

Oh, can we have some of that? I would love to. This is the exact wall that we used for the Macclesfield History Tapestry, and we matched it to all the natural dyes that would have been used in the buyer. So we've got a green. I love that green. It's a natural match to go with an orange, I think. So maybe we'll have some green on our eyes, yeah.

Oh, yes, yeah. So that would be weld. and woed together. Bucca has pultfully drawn my little home mouth with little featsies on to the linen. I only ever really learned to cross stitch that, I believe that as an adult, I'm capable of learning new things. So what should we stitch?

Should we stitch one of the little feet? Okay, so I'm going to just do like one, and then I'm going to pass it to you. Okay. So Bayer Stitch is also called laid and couched stitch. So it's two stages. So the first stage is the laying. You use a double thread.

Okay. Which I've just knotted at the back. We're not the Royal School of Moodlework here. And you take the wall sort of along where you want to be and just put it in at the next. Oh, okay. Yeah. So find the next sort of point in the line. Yeah.

Just on the outline across from where you were. So I've gone from the top to the bottom. I don't come up again at the top. I come out again at the bottom. directly next to where I was before. Okay. So what's on the back is just this tiny stitch. Wow, okay, yeah.

And then... It's interesting, it's sort of like the opposite of what you're usually trying to accomplish with sewing. Yes, for example, if you did satin stitch, which is, you know, embroidery, the desired effect really is that the back looks pretty much exactly like the front. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is not that. and you see quite quickly Yeah look at that

it's really filling up the little foot but with only a tiny amount on the back so all the work that they had to do to produce the wall spin the wall dye the wall it's not wasted on the back of the tapestry quite right too

okay so I'm going to bring you up here and then you're going to just connect to the top of it up I'm at the bottom I'm going very close very close to the top yeah As close as you can get.

So kind of just, you're just kind of leaving one linen thread in between the stitches. That's it. So if you can think like of how quickly, I mean, you need to fill a horse, a nice, woed blue horse on the biotapistre. Doing this technique, these threads are going to be maybe about 10, 15 centimetres. Yeah. Along. And then you're filling that whole horse up quite quickly.

Filling the whole horse up. It's just so funny. It's sort of funny. Just a sentence that you never said. No, it's normal now. It's gorgeous, isn't it? Yeah. Look, this is intensely rewarding.

You know, I've done about five stitches and I'm like, am I an artist? No. Well, you are. Clearly. This is the proof. There's something else. I would really like to show you your home in McEwells,

and that is Paradise Mill. And it is part of our museum. It is an entire floor of a mill filled with Victorian silk jackard looms and that's the biggest collection in the country. But we also have a weeder in there who's also called Eleanor. And she's going to show you

a medieval weaving technique. And we're going to look at how wall turns it into silk and how that has been part of Macafield's history and connects to our Mac History tapestry. I love that. Let's absolutely go. Oh my gosh, where are we? We're in Paradise Mill This entire floor that you can see

the wooden looms, the constructions, all made of wood apart from the iron down the centre is a Victorian Jackard Silk Mill and it was left like this and that's why we have it and the museum, the Silk Museum, acquired it in the 90s. So this is Eleanor Godfrey Eleanor.

Hello, good one. So Eleanor's been a weaver in residence here for two years. So Ella's got some medieval weaving techniques to show us. Thank God. Finally. All right. Listen,

I'm really, really interested in this because especially as someone who works on medieval women, this is one of those things that is just so strongly associated with work and women in the middle ages. And it is, in many ways, a lost art,

especially because of the increasing mechanized production of textiles. And I think that it's difficult for us to get our heads around how common it was to weave. Yeah. So I think, Oftentimes on the tours, a lot of the famous names that you hear, particularly in industrial weaving, they're all male names. So Jackard is the man, quite amusing air quotes here, who invented this kind of mechanised weaving method.

But actually what people forget and something that we try and really highlight here in the mill is actually there are centuries of women who came before that, who worked out ways of doing things themselves in their homes, in their lofts. is not Joseph Marie Jackard, who is to be credited for all of this. It is the thousands of women who sort of came before him. Absolutely brilliant. So can you show me what you're working on? Yes. So you can see a whole array of looms here. I'm just stopping you by this small loom on a table here

because we've threaded this loom with wool. And before the Industrial Revolution, they would have been weaving with wool. This is almost like a little model of a shaft loom, which again you can see in the background here, there's shafts that lift the threads up and down. The ladies would have spun the yarn themselves, either at home or here in the mill. Truly talented people.

And in the medieval period, the people producing it would have gone from the raw wool all the way up to the garments. They would have done the entire thing. Here in the mill, when the Industrial Revolution happened, it did get split up into more individual jobs. So there's all these different machines. around here in the mill and it would have been one person's job to weave, one person's job to

wind warps, one person's job to spin the yarn. But we do have a little picture here of a medieval man weaving on a treadle loom and we have our own treadle loom here in the mill as well. Oh, let's see this. And you should be able to get a kind of glimpse of how the more medieval techniques actually led to the industrial boom that we had and how they all kind of. of linked together. The treadles that you can see at the bottom, we have six foot pedals which connect to shafts where there's a row of heddles on each shaft and each one moves these to create the pattern. So I'll just put my foot down and you can see how moving different ones will move different and if you kind of do it on the other side, they're all tied to different places and

you can build a pattern that way. In Europe, they were weaving in this way with the treadels from as early as the 13th century. And it was just kind of ordinary people who would do this in their homes and often it would be passed on from generation to generation. Children would learn to do it. Children might do some of the smaller jobs like maybe spinning first. But even today in many different countries,

they still use this technique of weaving. because it's faultless really. And I think as well, a really common misconception about people during the medieval period is that they didn't think or know the same things we do. But actually, they'd worked this out. Centuries ago, they had things that were set up, made to last. They were passed down,

and we are literally still using them now. And actually, I think they need to be given a lot of credit for being the people who discovered this in the first place and perfected it really. And it's only, you know, with the rise of capitalism that we needed to kind of bring in the industrial scale things with all of the computers and coding and all of that kind of thing, which is equally as cool. But I think the fundamental working is out I find particularly impressive. Listen, the thing I always say is that a cottage industry is still an industry. Yes.

Just because it isn't happening at a huge scale doesn't mean that it isn't happening and it isn't commercial. So we're just coming over to it's a six shaft, Dobby. loom so it's got the mechanism on top and it has a pack of cards which goes through it you can see there's some pink or purple cards and they've got kind of punch holes which have holes punched in them and instead of it being foot pedals which input the pattern it's one single foot pedal which moves the pack of cards around would you like to have a go at weaving oh my gosh yeah yeah so just to start with I'll show you how the cards move around and you can kind of watch how they turn and then I'll weave a couple of picks for you and you can have a go your sight.

So you can see that each time I lift up it will turn or at least time I press down it will turn. And they go round, they go round a wooden block at the top. It's almost a bit like a music box, you know when it kind of goes round and it catches onto the thing. sort of it like that. So that's where we are now. I'm just getting round to the start of the pattern so we can do a line of weaving. I think we might be here. So I'll just put this through. Now with this pattern, you alternate between a navy blue cotton and a white cotton, although I'm just going to do the first couple of picks in Navy and then once we start alternating,

I will pass it over to you. And I'm just passing it through, yep, holding on and beating down, and then up, down, through, beat. up, down, other colour, through, and then beat it down. There, there. But it's kind of as easy as that, really. Okay, so I do this now with the white, because you just did the blue?

It's like, okay, so up, down. Yes. The white goes through. Yep. And then I'm beating you down. That's it. Great. I might have a force there.

I have to say, people tend to be kind of a bit overly cautious about it, But yeah, perfect. So you heard of your first girl can beat, you know. Okay, so the blue goes through. Oh wait, I had to go up. Oh, God, so you had to go out and pass. I got his own pass. I got, I got, she's going back, she's going back.

Listen, I got so excited about the beating. I forgot what happened now. We all do. Okay, so up, down, yeah, through. And then beat. Yeah, that's it. All right, okay, and then we go back. Okay, up, down, through with the white,

Oh, oh, oh, you're all right. Just pass it through again. I think it's, oh, actually. I'll never be higher. Okay, we, oh. We're all right, don't worry. I'm worried. It will still make a pattern.

Okay, it's, and then blue now. Okay, blue now. We're making some kind of pattern. Listen, this is what happens when you let someone like me do this because I just get too hype. You're going to have to stop me eventually because I'm just going to stay here all day. Do you know what?

You get lost in the, uh... It is a lot like the embroidery, though. There's something about it there. It's so rhythmic. Yeah. It's really easy to just kind of get carried away. Yeah, absolutely. But you know, listen, when I do it, it's cute.

So, up, down, through. I'm just going to do one more beat, full time's sake. Perfect. Yay. They're calling her the worst but most enthusiastic weaver. That's what we need. Yeah, listen, right? Yeah.

So there we go. So that's the Dobby mechanism. So all of the heddles are on shafts, which obviously resembles the original treadle loom, and then it gets far more complicated on the jacard, and I'm not allowed to touch those. I don't care about that anyway because it's not medieval, so... So before we have the launch of our exhibition, we're going to have a little stroll up into Macclesfield Town Centre, and we're going to be imagining what medieval Macclesfield looked like, but then we're going to actually see

one of the only buildings we've got that's medieval in Macclesfield. Oh, yes, please. So we're on Park Lane, when the Silk Museum is, and that's named after the park, which would have been the Royal Park, where the Earls would have had their Anglo-Saxon Hall Palace, and there would have been a deer park there, which stretched from here to the next village,

which is Gorsworth, and then up to McElsfield Forest. And we have record of a wolf trap being constructed, in the park to stop the wolves coming and eating the deer that belonged to the Black Prince. Because the Black Prince was Lord of the Manor here too. Oh, of course. And his manor would have just been down there. So we're going to cross over Old Park Lane, as it's called. The first silk mill in Macclesfield was there, across the road.

The very first silk mill that made buttons. And now we're heading up Mill Street, which is kind of our high street. Ah, I see. I like how everything is so silk-centric. So Mill Street, Silk Street, it's all happening. Everything in McElthield is either named after the silk industry or an incident that happened, I don't know when, when apparently a cart carrying barrels of treacle

tipped over in the marketplace and the treacle started to run down the hill and people came out of their houses with bowls to try and get the treacle. So we have a monthly farmer's market, which is really lovely. That's treacle market. And then the football club, that's the... silk men so yeah it's either treacle or silk all the way listen I think that's two pretty good things to be working with it's not bad right here we are in the marketplace a very small remainder of her an old cross oh look at this lovely and

this is St Michael's formerly All Saints and this is the Savage Chapel just to the right oh my gosh that sweet little thing oh and Eleanor of Castile's The castles on her shield above the door with the two lines rampant. Yeah. So we've got something really special happening now, back at the Silk Museum. We're going to unveil the tapestry in the exhibition and we've got some of the stitches who made the tapestry with us coming to meet you and yeah, enjoy the fruits of their labours. Oh, incredible, let's go.

My name is Amy Spilsad and I worked on the Paradise Mill on the tapestry. There was a lot of pressure actually upon myself because Paradise Mill means so much to me and to my work. I definitely put an unnecessary amount of challenge to myself to make it perfect, which I realized in the end that the original women working on tapestry many, many years ago would have just been getting on with it. So I had to step into their shoes a little bit. My name's Linda Leeson and I had the privilege of stitching the very strong, very strong

small flying dragon, which is up in the right-hand corner of the tapestrate. I did it because I like dragons. And also I kind of think it symbolises the medieval times and the mythology. There's been some incredible stitches involved, but the whole way it was set up, it also means that people that weren't experienced stitches could actually get involved as well. So I think visually it's fantastic. But I think also the fact that there was 70 people actually involved in taking part in the project.

What a way to bring a community together. And I think even like you can feel today just the buzz of being involved in it is just great. My name is Megan Price. I stitched the mulberry tree and also Christchurch Tower. I chose the mulberry tree because of it being so entwined with something. silk and I just moved to Mathesfield and was finding out everything about silk and also planting my garden and looking for a mulberry tree on the right kind of mulberry tree and so it was quite a personal response to planting my garden and being in silk town and then the Christchurch

tower I walk past every day so again that seemed to be a kind of personal building that was recognisable to me it's the first time I've seen it today in completion And what I particularly admire is the natural dyed wool and how the colours work so well together. And because we've stuck to that palette, even though they're all stitched by different people, there's a cohesiveness to it. And that those natural plant dyed fabrics are still so vibrant.

It's really impressive. My name is Brian Painter, and I worked on a heraldic ball and also part of the border as well. It was amazing because I'm a very important. maker I make with woolen canvas and having to really slow down and learn a specific way of making. One who was very, very interesting, but it was great to be part of something that gives you a massive appreciation of where we've come from. We've lost a lot of time taking over things, where everything wants to be done yesterday, whereas sometimes taking your time with things

and really putting in that detail matters a great deal. My name's Marian Vaskovich, and I worked on a couple of bits of the tapestry. I made the Little Windmill and I also worked on the Cheshire Archers and that was because my partner is actually a longbow archer so it seemed appropriate for me to do that. I think the whole idea of the bio coming over here has brought it to the forefront of people's minds. It's been such a positive experience, it's been great,

there's been a buzz about it from the very first meeting that we had. People were so enthusiastic about getting together and doing a community project that I think it would be a shame if it doesn't happen again. Well, Isla, and Becca, thank you so much for having me here. I think this is such an incredibly wonderful project because what it really does show is what a community endeavor, anything like this really is.

When you think about the Bayou Tapestry, it's not just the finished product. It's every single plant that was grown in order to diet. It's all the people who were harvesting the wool from the sheep and who were spinning it. And then, you know, the women who are embroidering it as well. And we've been able to recreate that to a certain extent here in McElsefield. We're just really so proud of it.

And it became a much bigger thing than we thought it was going to be. So many more people wanted to get involved than we anticipated. And people have just become really excited about it. And, you know, we kind of feel that we're a bit, you know, we've got our nerdy medieval enthusiasms, which we love. But it's been so lovely for people who've never particularly been interested in medieval history before. to kind of just join in with that and be so enthusiastic about it. That's it, I think, alongside enjoying the wardrobe,

is the fact that quite a few of the stitches have said, I've never thought about medieval Macclesfield. That came across quite a lot, but because of this, we shared that, I think. Also, one of the most moody things that's come out of this was a lady called, Jennifer, who wasn't here, said that she woke up at five in the morning and realised she'd made something that she could point. to and say, I made that. She's retired now, which has been a primary school teacher.

And she said, the job that I've had, I can't have a point or anything, and say, I've made that. And it's part of history. Yeah. And quite a lot of the women have said, you know, I feel like I've done it. And now it's part of posterity. And I think it's easy to think, you know, women aren't interested in being part of history or women aren't interested in making their mark. But it's been really lovely to hear the mostly women who stitch the tapestry. We have had some men stitching it as well.

But to say, it's so lovely to be part of it. of something that will endure and exist for a long time and the sort of work that we'd been involved generally isn't that. Yeah, that's the pinnacle really. And it's going to live in the Silk Museum. Wonderful. We're going to give it to them a long-term loan and people in McElfell can continue to see it.

Well, that's brilliant because I think what this entire project has shown is the thing that I believe down to my very, very bones, which is that history and art are for everyone. and they just need to be given a chance to participate in those things. So thank you so much for proving me right. Thanks so much for having me. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my series Meet the Normans,

as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com forward slash subscription. You can follow Gone Mud Evil on Spotify, where you can leave his comments and suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've got. non-medieval. Until next time.