The Bayeux Tapestry, telling the story of 1066 has made its way back to England for the first time since it was made, almost 1,000 years ago. But out of 70 metres of embroidery, only 3 English buildings appear in it. However, in England’s landscape today you can see the surviving and lasting impact of the Norman Conquest of England and what followed.
3 buildings in the Bayeux Tapestry
1. Holy Trinity Church, Bosham, West Sussex
Bosham Church opens the story, the church that is shown in the tapestry still stands today. Harold went to the village where he had an estate, heard mass, and feasted in his hall before sailing to Normandy. The church is Grade I listed , the chancel arch and the lower part of the tower are Anglo-Saxon and were likely standing when Harold walked through them. A small stone coffin was found in front of the chancel arch in 1865. It is believed to be connected to King Cnut’s Daughter, who is said to have drowned nearby.
2. Hasting’s Castle, East Sussex
The tapestry shows workmen with shovels building a motte at Hastings. It is one of the earliest images of a castle under construction and shows how quickly the Normans began making their mark in England.
Hastings Castle is Grade I listed and has been affected by coastal erosion.
3. Westminster Abbey, London
Westminster Abbey is famously show in scene 26 of the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting Edward the Confessor’s body carried to the church of St Peter the Apostle, with workmen still fixing the weathercock in place.
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The tapestry is the only surviving image of Edward’s abbey, consecrated days before his death in January 1066. Henry II demolished most of it from 1245 to build the gothic abbey that stands today. However, the Pyx chamber and the undercroft are a scheduled monument and were from the original abbey, with round arches and thick walls and may even contain England’s oldest door.
Where the conquest happened
4. Pevensey Castle
Pevensey Castle is where William’s fleet landed on 28 September 1066. The castle was not solely Norman built but also has walls of the Anderitum, a fort of the Saxon Shore, a defensive system of forts along the southeastern coast, left by the Romans. The Normans then built the castle on these foundations.
5. Battle Abbey, Battle
Pope Alexander II ordered William to do penance for the bloodshed at Hastings, and William vowed to build an abbey on the spot. Tradition places Battle Abbey’s high alter exactly where Harold fell. Built to atone for the violence of the conquest, perhaps, but just as plausibly a monument commemorating William’s victory.
However, new research suggests Alexander’s anger was not quite what it seemed. A 2026 book by Professor Tom Licence, ‘Harold: Warrior King’, argues that Harold had backed the wrong pope at a fraught moment when 2 rival popes had been declared. Alexander, the pope William had backed, may have blessed the invasion partly to punish Harold for that choice. His outrage at Christians killing Christians starts to look a little like mock outrage, masking hard-nosed medieval politics.
The abbey remained unfinished at William’s death in 1087 and was finally consecrated in 1094. It survived nearly 450 years before Henry VII dissolved it in 1538. Part of the site then became a private house, which still stands today.
6. Dover Castle, Kent
Dover is 1 of only 4 English places mentioned in the Bayeux Tapestry, shown as the Normans stronghold on the hill.
The castle occupies a site that has probably been used for 2,000 years, included on the site are an Anglo-Saxon church, Roman lighthouse. The great tower was built after the conquest in the 1180s, partly for the king to impress visitors and pilgrims on their travels.
What the Normans built next
7. The White Tower, Tower of London
The White Tower is one of England’s first significant Norman buildings. It began construction in the late 11th century and was finished by around 1100. The stone came from Caen, Normandy, a statement. It was not a local building, using local materials, but rather showed the power of the new king.
Inside is the Chapel of St John the Evangelist, on the second floor. It is plain, massive and one of the best-preserved Norman interiors in London. Its architecture would have evoked fond memories for Norman worshippers of their homeland across the channel.
8. St Mary and St David’s Church, Kilpeck
The Norman Conquest didn’t just give England Castles. It also gave a Norman Lord on the Welsh border an ambitious parish church.
St Mary and St David’s Church was built around 1134 to 1140 beside Kilpeck Castle. It is Grade I listed and one of the finest surviving examples of Romanesque sculpture in the country. Its masons may have been trained by craftsmen brought over from France. The south doorway includes intricate carvings of serpents, warriors, vines, and a Tree of Life.
The church was restored in 1848 and 1864. The earthworks and ruins of the castle still stand next to it.
9. Colchester Castle, Essex
Colchester Castle is the largest Norman keep in Europe by floor area.
Construction began around 1076, built directly onto the vaulted podium of the Roman Temple of Claudius. Reused Roman brick still runs through the walls. It was a deliberate choice of site: the temple had been the target of Boudica’s revolt against Rome a thousand years earlier, and building a Norman keep on the ashes of an earlier rebellion sent a clear message to a still restless country.
10. Durham Cathedral
Durham Cathedral was begun in 1093, and its rib vaults are among the earliest anywhere on this scale.
The choice to build the cathedral where its stands today goes back over a century before the conquest. In 995, a community of monks had been carrying the coffin of St Cuthbert around the north of England, fleeing Viking raids, and eventually brought them to rest in Durham where they are today. The Normans built on this sacred site to project Norman power and Authority in Northern England. William the Conqueror and his successors gave Durham’s bishops special secular and military powers to protect England along the volatile northern border against the Scottish.
It forms a World Heritage Site with Durham Castle. The nave piers are carved with chevrons, spirals and lozenges, and nowhere else quite captures the ambition of Norman England in the same way.
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