The Trails, Tours and Monuments Team brings Bunyan400 together with local Heritage and Tourism organisations to plan for the big anniversary in 2028.
One major project is to survey the various Bunyan trails through the town of Bedford and the surrounding area. Bunyan inhabited this landscape all his life, and his most famous works: The Pilgrim’s Progress and The Holy War, as well as his poetry and other writings, have deep roots here. It is impossible to walk through the town, or by its river, without encountering sites associated with him: the putative place of his baptism, the site of the gaol in which he was incarcerated for so many years, the church and maze of streets where the dissenting Christians worshipped, first in houses, in imminent danger of persecution, then on the site purchased by them, and where we still worship today.
Further afield you can find his birthplace, the place of his arrest and trial, and sites that certainly or reputedly lie behind the hazards encountered by Christian and his companions in The Pilgrim’s Progress. So it made sense for our last team meeting to gather, not in the centre of Bedford but, at the invitation of Russell Preston, at the parish church in Harlington, a few
miles south of Bedford, now on the Thameslink line to St Pancras and beyond.
We met in the church itself, under a Bunyan stained glass window. There, we discussed the existing local trails, ranging from short town walks to an eighty-plus mile route taking in more distant landmarks. We are hoping to encourage people to walk / cycle / drive the routes, making assessments of accessibility, conditions under-foot (or under-wheel), availability of information, and so on. We hope that some of this can be done over the summer, giving us a time to create leaflets and online resources, and ensure an enhanced visitor experience in time for 2028.
After the meeting, we were delighted to visit Harlington Manor, by kind permission of the owner, who gave us a guided tour of the room in which Bunyan was tried before the Magistrate, Francis Wingate, for preaching without a licence, leading to his imprisonment. We were thrilled to be given access to the actual room in which Bunyan stood his trial, and history was made.
Many thanks to the current owner of Harlington Manor for granting access, and to Russell Preston for hosting our meeting.
If you are interested in helping with the survey of local trails, please email: [email protected]. You can help locally by walking a section of a trail, or, if this is not possible because of time or distance, assist in the collection and collation of data.