Stone Carving of a Dog Chasing its Tail

This carving is one of several excavated in Church Lane in Canterbury. It dates from around the same time as the famous Bayeux Tapestry, the embroidery that tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Among other animals, the Bayeux tapestry includes over thirty dogs in its design, some of which appear to chase their own tails like the dog in this stone carving. There would have been quite a lot of dogs in medieval Canterbury, most would have been used in hunting, or for herding and guarding cattle like those depicted centuries later in Cooper’s paintings.