Stitched panel displaying information on the tapestry, showing which centres produced each panel.

New World Tapestry

The New World Tapestry was started in 1980 and took 20 years to complete. It depicts the English colonisation attempts in Newfoundland, North America, the Guyanas and Bermuda between 1583 and 1642. For a time is was the largest stitched embroidery in the world with 24 panels each measuring 11 feet x 4 feet. It contains almost 39 million stitches.

The first panel was started in the Prysten House, Devon and had a team of 20 people. Over the next 20 years an additional 8 centres were established across Devon and Dorset and the number of tapissiers who worked on the panels grew to 256. All were unpaid volunteers. Funding for the canvas, wool and frames was via sponsorship and public donations.

Click here for Interviews with the stitchers at a reunion in 2017.

Interview with Tom Mor

This is a video narrated by Tom Mor, who designed all the panels over a 20 year period. The video follows Tom’s narration as he talks about a number of the features and areas.

The tapestry is now owned by Bristol City Museum, and images are copyright to Tom Mor.

Virtual Exhibition

The tapestry was on public display until 2008 and is now in the reserves at Bristol City Museum. As there are no current plans to put it on public display, we have created a virtual exhibition.

Each of the 24 panels is listed below by year. The first image of the panel is static and when you roll your cursor over the image the magnifier is activated automatically. Each is followed by a video with an explanation by Tom Mor (Designer of the Tapestry) of the scenes depicted.