Latest news with #WilliamtheConqueror
Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Man goes walking in forest at night but one thing makes him leave immediately
A man who explored New Forest, covering Hampshire and Wiltshire, at night has explain exactly why he decided to turn around and head back towards his car mid-journey It has been voted as one of the best national parks in Europe - but one man says he turned around mid-hike after the 'atmosphere started to change'. New Forest National Par k, covering Hampshire and Wiltshire, is one of the largest remaining tracks of Southern England's unenclosed pasture lands. Its history spans nearly 1,000 years with William the Conqueror taking ownership of the area for hunts in 1079. While the forest is home to wild ponies today, it's said to be haunted by various ghosts throughout the centuries. After finding himself trekking through the forest at night, TikTok user @saintjidz experienced how 'creepy' it can be at night. In his video, he said: "In 2022, it was voted the best national park in Europe [in TripAdvisor's 2022 Travellers' Choice Awards for Destinations] but what can go wrong when you're hiking at night? "We decided to slap on the Garmin, jump in the Mini, drive down south and visiting the New Forest. "It was meant to be a simple trail, exploring the forest. But after veering off course, I had to hike through the darkness." He then shows himself surrounded by ponies while trying to navigate his way through the forest. He added: "Also known as the Whispering Forest, it's been around for nearly 900 years and with wild ponies roaming around at night, it felt like the atmosphere started to change." When he came head-to-head with around seven ponies, he decided to turn back - not wanting to risk what could have happened otherwise. "It was like silence of the lambs," he said: "I'm walking up and I'm seeing about seven ponies. You can never underestimate animals because if you encroach their space, I was like it's 7v1 - how am I going to manage that? I had to do a 360." Commenting on his video, one user said: "New Forest is gorgeous don't know if it's your thing but in the New Forest is Beaulieu Motor Museum, which is in the Beaulieu Estate. If you don't like cars then the gardens, abbey ruins and palace house is a must." Another user added: "Nah all good down here. Lived here ages and been out in the woods plenty of times at night (have a dog that hates others) - it's even better night. Hope you had a good visit." A third user said: "Most haunted forest in England and home to the witches of burly... if you believe that stuff." One more user added: "Nah this is wild. I am not a forest in the dark their eyes lighting up too." A final user said: "You be brave."
Yomiuri Shimbun
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Bayeux Tapestry to Be Displayedin U.K. for First Time in Nearly 1,000 Years
LONDON (AP) — The Bayeux Tapestry, the 11th-century artwork depicting the Norman conquest of England, will be displayed in the U.K. for the first time in almost 1,000 years. Officials said on July 8 that the treasured medieval tapestry will be on loan from France and arrive next year at the British Museum, where it will star in a blockbuster exhibition from September 2026 to July 2027. The loan was announced during French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to the U.K. The fragile 70-meter (230-foot) cloth depicts the events leading up to the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. The artwork was believed to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux and has been displayed in various locations across France, including most recently at the Bayeux Museum in Normandy.'The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most iconic pieces of art ever produced in the U.K. and I am delighted that we will be able to welcome it here in 2026,' Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said in a statement. 'This loan is a symbol of our shared history with our friends in France, a relationship built over centuries and one that continues to endure,' she added. In return, the British Museum will loan treasures from the Sutton Hoo collection — artifacts from a 7th century Anglo Saxon ship burial — to museums in Normandy. The excavation of Sutton Hoo was dramatized in the 2021 film 'The Dig' starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan. Other items to be loaned to France include the Lewis Chessmen, the mysterious medieval chess pieces carved from walrus tusks and whales' teeth dating from around the 12th century that were discovered on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why the Nazis stole a fragment of the Bayeux tapestry
There was great excitement at the news this month that the Bayeux tapestry – the 11th-century embroidered epic depicting the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066 – will go on display at the British Museum in 2026. However, the tapestry had already been in the news earlier this year, admittedly to much less fanfare. In March, it was reported that a fragment of the Bayeux tapestry had been discovered in Germany in the Schleswig-Holstein state archives. To understand how it ended up there, we must turn to a troubling and little-known episode in the tapestry's history: Sonderauftrag Bayeux (Special Operation Bayeux), a project operated by the Nazi Ahnenerbe, the SS regime's heritage research group. Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. It has often been observed that art seems to have been of disproportionate concern to the Nazis. However, their manipulation of visual and material culture should be understood as central to – not separate from – Hitler's genocidal regime and its efforts towards global domination. The Ahnenerbe, under the ultimate authority of Heinrich Himmler, was established to develop and disseminate histories in support of that mythology central to the Nazi regime: the supremacy of the Aryan race. To this end, the Ahnenerbe oversaw research that claimed to use unassailable scientific methods. However, it has long been acknowledged that their projects consciously manipulated historical evidence to construct fabricated histories that would support racist ideologies. To achieve this, numerous research projects were conducted. These projects saw scholars travel across the globe in the pursuit of objects that could act as monuments to the mythologies of Aryan supremacy. Sonderauftrag Bayeux was one such project. Nazi interest in the Bayeux tapestry may seem surprising to British people, where the tapestry is considered a symbol of a singularly significant moment in Britain's history. However, just as politicians in modern Britain have found it tempting to reference the tapestry in the advancement of their political agendas, so too did the Ahnenerbe. Sonderauftrag Bayeux aimed to produce a multi-volume study of the tapestry that would assert its inherently Scandinavian character. The objective was to present the tapestry as proof of the supremacy of the early medieval Norman people, whom the Ahnenerbe claimed as the ancestors of modern German Aryans and descendants of 'Viking' northern Europeans. By June 1941, work on Sonderauftrag Bayeux had begun in earnest. Among the team sent to Normandy to study the tapestry first hand was Karl Schlabow, a textile expert and head of the Germanic Costume Institute at Neumünster in Germany. Schlabow spent a fortnight in Bayeux, and it was he who removed a fragment of the tapestry's backing fabric and brought it back to Germany when his research visit was complete. Though initial reports suggested that Schlabow removed this fragment when the embroidery was later transferred by the Nazis to Paris, it is more likely that he did so during June 1941, when he and his fellow members of Sonderauftrag Bayeux were stationed in Bayeux. In a sketch by Herbert Jeschke – the artist commissioned to create a painted reproduction of the tapestry – during this visit, Jeschke depicted himself with Schlabow and Herbert Jankuhn (the director of the project) hunched over the tapestry. The sketch is accompanied by the emphatic title, 'Die Tappiserie!', an expression of delight at their privileged viewing of this medieval masterpiece. To join the Ahnenerbe, Schlabow, like others involved in the Sonderauftrag Bayeux, was inducted into the SS. He held the rank of SS-Unterscharführer (roughly the equivalent of a sergeant in today's British army). After the second world war many members of the Ahnenerbe denied having sympathy for Nazi policies. However, documents seized by US intelligence officers at the end of the second world war reveal that some were denied entry to the Ahnenerbe if they, for instance, had had Jewish friends or expressed sympathy towards communist ideas. They therefore had to (at least outwardly) appear sympathetic to Nazism to be inducted into its ranks. Details of what exactly the Ahnenerbe project uncovered, or even hoped to uncover, from this study of the tapestry are opaque. It appears that, to a large extent, the act of producing an illustrated study and dispatching researchers to the original textile was enough to claim the object as a monument to Germanic Aryan supremacy. It is clear that perceived Scandinavian influence within the tapestry's designs was to be central to the study's conclusions, but the project was not completed before Germany's defeat at the end of the war. Like many other members of the Ahnenerbe, Schlabow returned to research after the war, working at the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum in Gottorf Castle. The discovery of even the tiniest fragment of this remarkable medieval object is cause for much excitement. However, its recovery should be framed firmly in the context in which it was removed. It should come as no surprise that Schlabow felt empowered to steal this piece of the tapestry; the regime for which he worked claimed the object as a piece of his heritage, his birthright as an Aryan German. This find is a timely reminder that the past is closer than we realise and that there is still much work to be done to explore the long shadows cast by previous practices in the histories we inherit. The recovered fragment is currently on display in Schleswig-Holstein, but will return to the Musée la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Normandy in time for the museum's re-opening in 2027 when the two elements will be reunited for the first time since 1941. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Millie Horton-Insch receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.
BBC News
10-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Historic coin hoard set to go on display at Museum of Somerset
A hoard of 2,584 historic silver pennies discovered in Somerset by a group of metal detectorists is set to return to the as the Chew Valley Hoard, the coins were found in January 2019 and date from just after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. They depict both the defeated King Harold II and the triumphant William the coins had been on display at the British Museum from November 2024 until May 2025 and will visit a number of other museums across the country before arriving in Taunton next summer.A planning application has been submitted to Somerset Council to create a gallery in the round tower at the Museum of Somerset to allow the hoard to be displayed. The Chew Valley Hoard contains 1,236 coins of Harold II, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England, and 1,310 coins of William I, as well as several coin hoard is the largest Norman treasure find since was bought for £4.3m in 2024, making it the highest-value treasure ever found in the UK. The group that discovered it while metal detecting in the Chew Valley area of Bath and North East Somerset split the proceeds with the a statement, the South West Heritage Trust said that preparations were now under way for the coins to go on display at the Museum of Somerset and that a new permanent gallery space would be trust added that the proposed project is subject to funding from a range of partner organisations.
Toronto Star
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
What to know about the Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th century masterpiece of historical record
LONDON (AP) — The Bayeux Tapestry, a 70-meter- (229 foot)-long medieval artwork that depicts the Norman conquest of England, will be displayed in Britain next year for the first time in 900 years. It will be exhibited at the British Museum in London from September 2026 to July 2027 as part of a bilateral celebration of the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror, the French nobleman who led the invasion. The loan was announced during French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to the UK this week.
