Patrick Comerford
In recent weeks, I have been visiting a number of churches in Bedford, including Saint Paul’s Church, the main church in the town centre, Saint Peter’s Church on Saint Peter’s Street in the De Parys area, Saint Cuthbert’s Church in the middle of a traffic island between Castle Road and Mill Street, the former Church of the Holy Trinity, now part of Bedford Sixth Form College; and the site of a long-disappeared mediaeval church, All Hallows’ Church.
But Bedford also has a strong nonconformist or dissenting tradition, and on Mill Street I visited two chapels that are integral parts of that tradition: Bunyan Meeting Church, associated with John Bunyan, and the former Howard Congregational Church, associated with the campaigner for penal reform, John Howard.
Both the Bunyan Meeting Church and the former Howard Congregational Church are on Mill Street and they have their roots in a tradition of radical dissent that dates from the 16th and 17th centuries.
In the religious turbulence fomented during and in the aftermath of the Reformation, the Puritans and Calvinists demanded deeper and more far-reaching reforms in the Church. For the next 200 years or so, radical Protestants or dissenters, including Baptists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists, excluded themselves from the Church and were excluded from the schools or universities and from holding public office.
These dissenters and nonconformists, including the heirs of the Puritans and Calvinists, formed the main body of supporters of Cromwell and the Parliamentarians in the mid-17th century. The most prominent of them in Bedford was John Bunyan (1628-1688), the author of Pilgrim’s Progress.
John Bunyan was born in Harrowden, a mile south-east of Bedford, in the Parish of Elstow, in 1628. He was largely self-educated and used the Bible as his grammar. He read very few other books, and they were all piously Protestant in nature. Yet he was the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, telling the story of the man Christian on his journey through life to God and arguably the most famous published Christian allegory.
At the age of 16, Bunyan joined the Cromwellian garrison in Newport Pagnell. He returned to Bedford three years later, followed his father into trade as a tinker, married, and attended local parish churches, including Saint Cuthbert’s Church. Bunyan lived in a cottage at No 17 Saint Cuthbert’s Street from about 1655, and where one of his sons was baptised in Saint Cuthbert’s Church and one of his daughters was married in the church.
By the late 1650s, Bunyan was an active member of the Bedford Meeting of ‘Independents’, founded in 1650, and became a preacher.
After the Caroline restoration in 1660, over 2,000 clergymen refused to take the oath and were expelled from office in the Church of England in what became known as the Great Ejection of 1662. Many were fined or imprisoned and some were even executed.
Bunyan was jailed in Bedford in from November 1660, and spent more than 11 years in prison until 17 May 1672, under the Conventicle Act. He was held in county gaol on the corner of the High Street and Silver Street. He was allowed out of prison, occasionally, when he was able to attend the Bedford Meeting and even to preach, and during those years also fathered more children.
While he was still in prison, Bunyan was chosen as pastor of the Bedford Meeting in 1671. When he was pardoned on 17 May 1672, he returned to preaching in the town. In October 1672, he became the part-owner with his congregation of a barn and an adjoining piece of land in the parishes of Saint Paul and Saint Cuthbert in Bedford.
The barn was used for worship, and eventually, a church was built on the site. In time, the church on the site of the barn became known as the Bunyan Meeting Free Church.
Charles II withdrew the Act of Indulgence in 1676, and four years later Bunyan was jailed once again in 1680, this time for six months. During those years, he completed The Pilgrim’s Progress. It was published in 1678 by Nathaniel Ponder and immediately became popular.
Meanwhile, the parish register in Saint Cuthbert’s Church, dating from 1607, records the baptism on 16 November 1672 of Joseph Bunyan, a son of John Bunyan, who was living in the parish, and the marriage in 1686 of Sarah Bunyan, a daughter of John Bunyan.
John Bunyan died in London at the age of 59 on 31 August 1688, and is buried in Bunhill Fields. In time, The Pilgrim’s Progress became one of the most published books in the English language.
Bunyan’s only hymn, ‘He who would valiant be,’ was revised and reworked by Percy Dearmer for The English Hymnal (1906). Ralph Vaughan Williams adapted a traditional Sussex melody, ‘Monk’s Gate’, as the setting for the words. For my generation, this was a popular, rousing hymn in school assemblies.
A second church was built on the site of Bunyan’s meeting house in 1849 and it is still in use today.
A bronze statue of John Bunyan by Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm was erected in Bedford in 1874. It stands at the south-west corner of Saint Peter's Green, facing the High Street.
Boehm’s statue depicts Bunyan expounding the Bible to an invisible congregation, with a broken fetter representing his imprisonment by his left foot.
here are three scenes from The Pilgrim’s Progress on the stone plinth: Christian at the wicket gate; his fight with Apollyon; and losing his burden at the foot of the Cross.
In 1876, Hasting Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford, presented the Bunyan Meeting Church with bronze doors by the sculptor Frederick Thrupp depicting scenes from The Pilgrim’s Progress in ten panels, modelled on the Baptistry Doors in Florence.
The left door depicts (top to bottom): Christian with Hopeful crossing the River of Death; Christian being beckoned by Damas to view his silver mine; Christian talking with Simple, Sloth and Presumption; Christian asleep in the arbour on the Hill Difficulty; and Christian being welcomed at the Wicker Gate by Goodwill.
The right door depicts (top to bottom): A composite picture of Faithful’s death and the chariot taking him to the Celestial City; Christian receiving his armour at the House Beautiful; Christian passing the lions on his way to the House Beautiful; Christian meets the Shining Ones at the foot of the Cross; and Christian about to leave his family.
The octagonal, 11th century Baptistry of Saint John the Baptist in Florence stands across the square from Piazza di San Giovanni from the Duomo. The Baptistry is older than the cathedral, being built between 1059 and 1128, and it is renowned for its three sets of bronze doors with relief sculptures. The south doors were created by Andrea Pisano and the north and east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti. Michelangelo named the east doors the ‘Gates of Paradise.’ Dante and other Renaissance figures, including members of the Medici family, were baptised in the Baptistry.
A separate museum building was built in the church grounds in 1998, and the Bunyan artefacts and memorabilia once housed in a small museum room in the church were moved there, including Bunyan’s iron violin and wooden flute, the stoneware jug he used in prison, his will and a third edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Today, the Bunyan Meeting Church is a busy, town centre church affiliated to both the Congregational Federation and the Baptist Union, and until recently it was affiliated to the United Reformed Church. The minister is the Revd Chris Damp.
Sunday morning service are at 11, with Communion on the first Sunday in the month; Sunday evening services are at 6:30, with Communion on the third Sunday of the month. There is ‘all-age worship’ at 9:30 am on the second and fourth Sundays of each month.
John Bunyan is remembered in the calendar of the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30 August. Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury preached at Bthe unyan Meeting on 29 May 2022 to celebrate the 350th anniversary of John Bunyan becoming minister of the church in 1672.
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