Known by every Brit and woven into the national identity. A fair description of both the Bayeux Tapestry and Greggs Sausage Roll – so a pleasing and patriotic choice for the latter to have paid homage to the former. All to mark National Sausage Roll Day (don’t say you’d forgotten?) as well as celebrate the return to these shores later this year of the 11th-century embroidery.
The food-to-go chain commissioned royal embroider Hawthorne & Heaney to create the eight-metre-long ‘Ta-Pastry’ which chronicles not William the Conqueror’s voyage to and victory in Hastings in 1066, but the potted history of its flagship product from inception to ‘Victor Mundi’ – including the ‘Great Divide’ (of opinion) when Greggs introduced a Vegan Roll.
Despite its origins no doubt as a bad pun in a marketing meeting, it’s undoubtedly a beautiful thing. Most impressive is the physical labour and craft that went into the panoramic piece: some 200 hours carefully making 5.5 million stitches.
As Zoe Harris, customer director at Greggs, puts it: “Some legends deserve more than just a paper bag.” There’s a definite nod to Grayson Perry – who too documents contemporary Britain in age-old mediums – in the work.
Highlights in the piece include Piers Morgan sampling a Vegan Roll on live television and the viral Newcastle United supporter who shaved an image of a Greggs roll on the back of his head.
It’s on show for two days (5-6 June) at the Design Museum in London, but is sure to resurface when Bayeux-mania hits the UK in September. A tasty combination of complete irreverence and artisan craftsmanship.
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