Bid to bring 'lost' Henry VIII tapestry to Auckland Castle

Millionaire Jonathan Ruffer is backing a fundraising campaign to try and buy the almost 500-year-old tapestry

A philanthropist is campaigning to get a 16th Century tapestry which went missing for 200 years displayed in County Durham.

Auckland Castle owner Jonathan Ruffer wants the King Henry VIII tapestry to have a new home at the attraction.

The tapestry, which depicts the life of St Paul, took pride of place in the king's Hampton Court in the 1530s.

Mr Ruffer is backing a £1m campaign to return it to the UK from a private collection in Spain.

Mr Ruffer said his Zurbaran Trust needed to raise the money to apply for matched funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund to try to buy the treasure.

He said so far more than £370,000 had been raised in about six weeks.

Jonathan Ruffer described the tapestry as the "birth certificate" of the Church of England

"This vast, golden tapestry was ordered by Henry VIII when he declared himself Head of the Church of England, forever changing our national faith and history," Mr Ruffer said.

"One opportunity exists to bring it back to Britain.

"Besides being the 'Holy Grail of Tudor tapestry', this tapestry is effectively the birth certificate of the Church of England."

The tapestry, which is almost 20ft (6m) wide, was produced by Flemish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst and shows St Paul burning "heathen" books at Ephesus, as recounted in the Bible's Acts of the Apostles.

It was found in a private collection in Spain in 2018, more than 200 years after it was recorded as being at Windsor Castle in 1770.

Mr Ruffer, who bought Auckland Castle in 2012, also funds Kynren, an open-air show in the town depicting 2,000 years of English history.