Newly Discovered Sections of the Bayeux Tapestry.

It seems the Bayeux Tapestry has been holding out on us. For centuries we’ve admired its fine depictions of horses with pipe-cleaner legs, Norman boats that look suspiciously like IKEA flatpacks, and Saxons all pointing in the same direction like a medieval conga line. But now, lo and behold, new panels have emerged – and they reveal that Harold and William weren’t the only ones at it. The Saxons had hobbies.

One panel shows them busily painting roundabouts. Not storming castles, not defending hearth and home – painting white circles on the ground like the world’s first highways department. The Latin inscription leaves no room for doubt: “SAXONS PINGUNT ROTAS TRANSVERSALES.” Translation – “Dave, fetch another bucket, we’ve got a mini-roundabout to finish before vespers.” Apparently Britain’s love affair with baffling road layouts stretches back nearly a millennium.

Another panel is even more startling. Forget Hastings, here we have the first protest march – “GO HOME NORMANS.” Saxons, banners aloft, demanding that the foreigners pack up and push off. It’s practically Farage in wool embroidery. The only thing missing is a Saxon with a pint in one hand and a dog on a string in the other. The irony, of course, is that the Normans were only doing what the Saxons had done a few centuries earlier – invading. But as every populist knows, history starts the moment you feel hard done by.

And then there’s the pièce de résistance – “Protest at the Asylum Hotel.” Saxons lined up outside a half-timbered Premier Inn, shouting “No to asylum” in Gothic script while a bewildered innkeeper looks on. It’s the Middle Ages’ answer to GB News. The borders are decorated not with proud lions or noble eagles, but with creatures that look suspiciously like the Daily Mail comments section in reptile form.

So what have we learned from these rediscovered panels? That the English were grumpy about immigration long before Twitter. That roundabouts were painted before roads were invented. And that populist sloganeering, once stitched in wool, is no less daft than when it’s belted out in Westminster or bellowed from a Facebook meme. The only real difference is that the tapestry has lasted nearly a thousand years. Today’s slogans will barely last the week – which is probably a mercy.