Almost lost in the coverage of President Macron’s seemingly generous offer to lend us the Bayeux tapestry is the fact that its home museum is about to be redeveloped (Battle of Hastings site launches rival bid for Bayeux tapestry, 19 January). Would it be too cynical to suggest that Macron’s gesture is really about finding a cost-effective way of accommodating the tapestry during those works and nothing at all to do with the relationship between our two countries in anticipation of the brave new post-Brexit world?

Harvey Sanders

London

• The women who stitched the Bayeux replica are not guilty of editing the original (Letters, 19 January). This is a myth. The women of the Leek Embroidery Society faithfully copied photographs lent to them by South Kensington Museum (now the V&A). I examined the photographs during post-doctoral research, and discovered that the offending body parts had already been removed. This is what the embroiderers copied. Sorry to spoil the fun.

Dr Brenda King

Chair, The Textile Society

• Your article states that the tapestry was probably woven between 1066 and 1077. It was not woven, and is therefore, not a tapestry. It was embroidered, and is a piece of embroidered cloth.

Emeritus professor Anthony Milton

Royston, Hertfordshire

• It’s great that the Bayeux Tapestry is coming to Britain temporarily, but why does it have to go to London? Why does everything have to go to London? Why not Canterbury, where it was made; or Hastings, which it depicts; or Stamford Bridge, where the earlier battle depicted took place? These places are accessible, you know.

Michael Heaton

Warminster, Wiltshire

• I see that the D-day Museum in Portsmouth, which houses the Overlord tapestry, depicting the Battle of Normandy in the second world war, is closed for refurbishment. This would be an excellent opportunity to lend the Overlord tapestry to France as a reciprocal gesture, non?

Catherine Roome

Staplehurst, Kent

• Fishguard could lend the Last invasion tapestry to France. Of a similar size, it commemorates the failed attempt in 1797 of revolutionary French forces to export revolution to Britain. The four frigate invasion force of 1400 soldiers landed close to Fishguard but was swiftly defeated. This invasion scared the British government so much that the Bank of England issued paper money promissory notes. The Fishguard tapestry was made by 60 local women and is in its own special gallery. A temporary exchange of these unique tapestries would balance the history of French success.

Jeremy Martineau

Secretary, Fishguard and Goodwick Chamber of Trade and Tourism

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