The Tapestry was initially launched May 31st/ June 8th 2014 at Prestonpans Community Centre with some 150+ panels completed. It was a major project for Scotland’s 2014 Homecoming sponsored locally as heir to The Prestonpans Tapestry completed in 2010 and supported with grants from CreativeScotland, EventScotland and the Scottish Government itself. Panels still continued to arrive and when a halt was finally called to contributions we had received 305. Veere in The Netherlands volunteered to provide the second Premiere from May 30th / July 26th . But the 10th Anniversary will see 311 panels as Icelandic stitchers [5] and Chatham-Kent Ontario [1] took their own initiatives to stitch and donate their braw tales.
The tapestry toured the globe from 2014 till 2018 with its own Homecoming in Westminster Hall in London and St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. It rested until after the pandemic when it reemerged in Dundee at the Verdant Works and since 2022 has been on display with four monthly panel rotation in Prestonpans Town Hall. It’s been viewed and acclaimed by more than half a million visitors already but there’s so much to learn and to enjoy that it’s surely only awhile until it finds a permanent home here in Scotland. Until then, of course, we’re more than duty bound to share the tales everywhere we can; we made a promise to the thousands of volunteer stitchers. This 10th Anniversary provides a significant opportunity. So ….
April / May 2024 the tapestry return to Veere in the Netherlands.
June/ August 2024 the tapestry will be on an East Lothian Safari; which means a dozen or more venues across the county will take a selection of panels and visitors will be invited to download a Passport for stamping at each venue ready for a Grand Festival back in Prestonpans.
If Safari sounds ambitious it probably is; but taking and presenting the tapestry in more than 50 venues around the world from Otago New Zealand to Montello Wisconsin has been a good decade’s training. If Safari sounds up market for the Scottish Diaspora, remember it created the Kruger National Park in South Africa and pioneered Flying Doctors and indeed QANTAS in Australia. Mind you, Ozzies would probably refer to our Safari as a Pub Crawl and in deference to them we’ll be making the effort as we set out the timetable to pinpoint great local hostelries at each of our Safari venues!
P.S. There will certainly be other locations in 2024 and beyond for those not able to get to East Lothian that readily. Helmsdale, which hosted the panels in October/ November 2014 in Caithness is scheduling a return visit in October 2024. Helmsdale is home to Gerald Laing’s statue The Emigrants of which a matching piece can be seen in Winnipeg, Manitoba where the tapestry was displayed in the Legislature in June/ July 2016. And there’s talk of Geddes in France …. any and all are welcome to get in touch and book into our schedules …..
