New issues -
🇳🇦 Nam Post, postal service of Namibia -
8 May 2026 - Chameleons of Namibia - 1 miniature sheet containing 2 different stamps. Designed by Helge Denker & lithographed. Rating - *****.
🇬🇧 Royal Mail -
14 October 2026 - pure speculation, but the proposed issue for this date remains “TBA”. Those interested in history will recall that the date is the 960th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings when the last English king of England, Harold II, fought Guillaume le Bâtarde, the Duke of Normandy, for the English crown and was killed, possibly by being shot in the eye with an arrow, at the Battle of Hastings.
This year, the Bayeux Tapestry, a monumental work of embroidery 70 metres in length and 50cm high and depicting 58 scenes, produced in England possibly on behalf of the Norman Duke’s wife, Mathilde, in the years after the battle and subsequently taken to Bayeux Cathedral where it was housed for centuries and is now normally housed in a bespoke building, the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, has been brought back to England for the first time in 900 years and is on display in the British Museum for several months.
The return of the embroidery to its homeland for several months is an important cultural event for the English and very worthy of a stamp issue. Perhaps therefore the TBA issue of 14 October will feature the Bayeux Tapestry and commemorate its return to England. Unlike the World Cup the Bayeaux Tapestry has finally made it home. Let’s hope the English do not have to wait 900 years for World Cup to arrive back in the Sceptred Isle although, according to the song, it appears to be perpetually “coming home”.
Scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry were depicted on the set of 8 stamps (a setenant strip of 6 plus two singles (6d & 1/3d)) designed by the genius David Gentleman, issued by the British Post Office in 1966 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings:-
The end of the story is missing on the Bayeux Tapestry and so Guernsey Post released a set of 6 stamps and a very interesting miniature sheet printed on combed cotton inscribed Alderney which depicted likely scenes from the missing ‘final panel’. These had been featured on a real three metre-long embroidered ‘tapestry’ produced in Alderney. These were issued on 28 May 2014 and the collection included a prestige booklet sold for £14.44.
Guernsey Post also released a set of 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet, again inscribed ‘Alderney’, designed by Nick Watton on 14 September 2016 to commemorate the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. The front cover of the presentation pack depicted William being crowned on 25 December 2025.
The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) postal service issued a single stamp depicting the Battle of Hastings in 2010 as part of a set depicting important battles in British history (Diego Garcia is a strategically important US-British base hence military-themed stamps seem appropriate).
And let us not forget the postal service of France’s single stamp released in 1966 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.
