The New Murrey and Blue blog

The first thing to notice about this is that is an embroidery not a tapestry, although the “Bayeux Tapestry” is also an embroidery ie hand-stitched. It was constructed to mark the millennium of the 991 Battle of Maldon, at which Vikings, possibly under Olaf Tryggvason, defeated and killed the Saxon Earldorman Brythnoth. It is displayed behind glass in the Maeldune Heritage Centre, the ground floor of the redundant St. Peter’s Church and below the Thomas Plume Library, on a corner of the High Street that leads downhill and to the east.

Apart from the battle itself, the embroidery shows: a stretcher taking Brythnoth to Ely Cathedral for burial, a Heinkel bomber that was shot down near the town (not in 991), Beeleigh Abbey and Henry II’s charter, the many local churches, the d’Arcy family and “their” Moot Hall, the Rose & Crown, Dr. Plume, shipping and other industry, the 45 stone Edward Bright, the evanescent rail links and the bypass that opened a year before the battle anniversary.