OLD TALES AND GILDED BUTTERFLIES

The formalized early 20th-century depictions of the Battle of Lewes, glimpsed in the film, seem to rob the event of the brutality, the violence, the mess that must have been the experience of the actual participants. But the modern tapestry is rather special. Designed by a Lewes artist and lovingly stitched by an army of local embroiderers, it was unveiled at Lewes Castle on the battle’s 750th anniversary, 14th May 2014. Measuring three metres wide and eighty centimetres high, the tapestry is divided into five panels depicting different periods of time from the seven or eight hours the battle lasted. According to the Sussex Express, ‘These  are distinguished from each other by their colour and detail. The earlier phases seem paler, or more distant, compared with the later, more dramatic and far bloodier stages of the fight.’