Is this where King Arthur died? … the 14th-century church tower on Glastonbury Tor. Photograph: Lee Thomas/Alamy View image in fullscreen Is this where King Arthur died? … the 14th-century church tower on Glastonbury Tor. Photograph: Lee Thomas/Alamy Art Never mind the Bayeux! Here’s some other great medieval art – and it’s free Want to see some old wonders but don’t fancy forking out £33 for 40 minutes with a tapestry? Our critic celebrates the British treasures you can see all year round – from monstrous crypt carvings to the vaulting glory of our cathedrals
Jonathan Jones Tue 30 Jun 2026 06.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google T here’s a carved stone character grimacing furiously in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral and you can see why – a man is sitting on his head, legs apart, holding a fish and bowl in outstretched arms. Other figures perched atop slender stone columns include a creature with a serpent’s tail wrestling a dog-like monstrosity, a gryphon eating a siren, and a (now-detached) carving of a horned devil. All this nefariousness in the depths of England’s holiest shrine.
But then medieval British art is full of wonder, mystery and humour. It is also so abundant that it gets taken for granted. But now, after almost 1,000 years, it is about to have a moment. This week, the rush will begin to get £33 tickets to spend 40 minutes in the company of a medieval British artwork. The Bayeux Tapestry, a 70-metre embroidery depicting the Norman conquest of England in 1066, was almost certainly embroidered by Kent women to a commission by Bishop Odo of Bayeux in the 1070s.
View image in fullscreen Horse play … a detail of the Bayeux Tapestry. Photograph: DEA/M. Seemuller/De Agostini/Getty Images After surviving for centuries as a treasure of Bayeux in Normandy, its loan to the British Museum in London is exciting but ironic – for, while the fuss is understandable, it is not as if we don’t have other superb medieval art and architecture. Perhaps Bayeuxmania should make us dust off our Romanesque and gothic treasures and appreciate them more. And if you quail at the queues to see the Tapestry, it may be a pleasant surprise to find that most of these other marvels involve much less money and hassle.
I don’t mean to insult Anglo-Saxon England, but Medieval art came to Britain with the Normans Medieval art came to Britain with the Normans. I don’t mean to insult Anglo-Saxon England but as the Bayeux Tapestry shows, with its images of William (later known as the Conqueror) and his men charging about on horseback or building a castle, continental Europe was slightly more advanced. By 1066, it had crystallised into feudal societies – the world of lords, knights and peasants bound by oaths and unified by Christianity. This was an artistic golden age in France and across Europe, with the building of great Romanesque abbeys and churches. Immediately after the conquest, this style hit Britain, led by Lanfranc, the Italian monk who was made Archbishop of Canterbury by King William I.
It costs nothing to look at a view and the middle ages created some of Britain’s best. Glastonbury Tor haunts imaginations with its enigmatic tower, built on top of a lonely steep hill. Is it the place King Arthur died? The question endures even though the tower is that of a 14th-century church, its dreamy location typical of the medieval eye for the picturesque.
View image in fullscreen Nefarious depths … a carving in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral sh...