Harlaxton 2016: John Bunyan Field Trip and the Houghton House

By:  Sherafghan Khan

Today’s class field trip was dedicated to visiting different sites associated with John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress. We went to locations such as the John Bunyan Museum, the Bunyan Meeting Church, a trip to Elstow, and, finally, the Houghton House. I really enjoyed riding in the double-decker bus as well; it was the full British experience.

It was amazing to see the actual metal violin Bunyan made, the anvil that he carried on his back, Pilgrim’s Progress written in 170 different languages, and life-size models of John Bunyan. The church was truly a work of art. The windows of the church depicted different scenes from Pilgrim’s Progress with great artistic detail; I was in complete awe.

Our next stop was Elstow (only about a 10-minute drive south of Bedford), the birthplace of John Bunyan as well as the location of the third largest abbey in all of Britain – the Elstow Abbey. We stopped in a park in this town and ate our lunches and fed wild geese in a local river. We then arrived at the Houghton House (also located in the Bedfordshire county). Bunyan was a tinker, meaning he would go to mansions such as the Houghton House and fix the resident’s pots and pans. Even though this house was in ruins, it was neat to see what a mansion that John Bunyan would visit looked like.

When we arrived back at Harlaxton Manor, my friends and I decided to rent bicycles and travel to the town of Grantham. Coincidentally, the last time I wrote a blog I talked about how I biked in the streets of London. There is a clear distinction between the setting in which we biked today and that of London. Here, there were mostly wheat fields compared to the tall skyscrapers in London. As we biked to Grantham, there was a soft British mist and subtle rain that fell on our faces. The weather and the scenery was completely picturesque, especially our view on our bike ride back into the manor. My day concluded with a game of basketball in the Harlaxton gym and studying for tomorrow’s quiz in the exquisite library. It is truly amazing how many different places we have visited so far as well as our residency – a marvelous castle in the British countryside.