Cirencester History Festival 2026 launches competition
Join In! Cirencester to Create Bayeux‑Inspired Community Tapestry for History Festival 2026
Cirencester History Festival is marking one of the most significant cultural moments of our lifetime with a free, drop‑in community art project running throughout Festival Week (23 October – 1 November 2026). To celebrate the return of the Bayeux Tapestry to England for the first time in nearly 1,000 years, the Festival invites residents, visitors, families, and schools to help create a spectacular new artwork: The Cirencester Tapestry.
Competition: Submit Your Drawing for the Cirencester Tapestry
Before the stitching begins, the Festival is inviting the community to submit simple pencil drawings celebrating Cirencester — past or present — for a chance to be featured in the final design.
Festival Director Jess Yarrow explains: “While the original Bayeux Tapestry is famous for depicting the Battle of Hastings, its true magic lies in how it acts as an accidental time capsule of everyday medieval life. Look closely and you’ll find 11th-century farming, cooking, fashion, and wildlife. We want the Cirencester Tapestry to do the same for our town. We are looking for simple scenes of local life, both historic and modern. We’d love to see local landmarks and familiar streets, but also the everyday things—the trees, vehicles, animals, and people that make up our town.”
Winning entries will be combined into a 1.2m x 3m Bayeux-inspired image by the Festival’s illustrator, Emily Moss, which the whole community will embroider during Festival Week.
Design: Draw a simple picture in pencil on a sheet of landscape white A4, filling the page – not too complicated or sketchy or coloured in, as this will need to be embroidered. You may like to incorporate a part of town that wouldn’t be on a postcard, but you know really well!
Submit: Hand in drawings at the Corinium Museum or Cirencester Library, or scan and email them to hello@cirencesterhistoryfestival.org.
Who can enter: Open to all local residents, schools, clubs and families. Free to enter with no purchase necessary.
Deadline: 31 July 2026. Full details: www.cirencesterhistoryfestival.org