The holiness of the Holy Well in Stevington, near Bedford, has been recognised since at least the mid-1100s when a guest house or hospitium was set up for pilgrims who came to bathe their eyes in its soothing waters.
Cool, clean and clear, the spring of the Holy Well emerged from beneath the limestone rock on which the church, originally Saxon, was built. Significantly, the spring emerged eastwards. There the rock was hewn into a cavern, again aligned east/west, long enough to form an immersion chamber within the rock outcrop. The spring has never been known to dry up or freeze. It is, therefore, an everflowing stream coming from under the church itself.
By 1264 the nuns at the hospitium were firmly established with a vineyard, garden and dovecote. They survived the dark times of the Black Death, lingering quietly until the Dissolution, when the hospitium buildings were subsumed into the Manor Farm. They stood until the 19th century.
The antiquarian Thomas Fisher visited the village in 1811, and reported in the Gentleman’s Magazine: “Very near to the Church, on the south side, stands a long range of low buildings, designed for separate inhabitation; each apartment opening under a small pointed arch to the area in front, and no internal communication existing between any two of them. A gatehouse or porter’s lodge, and an unroofed chapel, were also attending there within the memory of man, of which the foundations may still be traced.”
If the buildings associated with the holy well were standing in 1811, they would almost certainly have been known to John Bunyan, who was born only a few miles from Stevington.
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Did Bunyan replace the pilgrims of old with the story of another pilgrim — Christian — whose adventures were to fly to all corners of the earth?
The hospitium still existed when he walked the country routes of north Bedfordshire in his work as a tinker. He lived near by, first at Elstow and then Bedford, five miles away. A source of flowing pure water would be welcome to any traveller, but Stevington would stand out for other reasons. The village supported a strong early Baptist church equal to that of Bedford drawing communicants from north of the county and into Northamptonshire.
It is highly likely that Bunyan, hungry to listen and learn, would have gone there to hear sermons. Having strengthened his faith and discovered his gift for preaching, he went — local legend suggests — to preach in the Stevington meadows besides the River Great Ouse.
Just a few fields from here, in 1656 we know that he disputed Quaker doctrine with the young Edward Burrough and as a result wrote his first two pamphlets. Furthermore, when released from prison in 1672, he was responsible for obtaining licenses for various local independent churches including that of Stevington.
In total, John Bunyan wrote 60 books and sermons, his most famous being The Pilgrim’s Progress, the story of Christian’s epic journey to the City of God. Written as a dream, from his “den” in prison during the late 1660s or early 1670s, it was eventually finished and published in 1678. Its print run over the succeeding centuries has been truly astonishing, and it has been translated and read in very many languages.
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Did Bunyan draw all his inspiration from the Bible alone or did some of the scenes have their origins in places which he had visited before being cast in prison?
One pivotal scene is when Christian reaches the Cross; the picture of which gives him such wonderful joy that his burden falls from off his back and tumbles into the Sepulchre where he sees it no more. He drinks from the spring and goes up Hill Difficulty to stay in House Beautiful. First he asks the Porter what house is this and can he stay. The Porter replies that it was built by the Lord of the hill for the Relief and Security of Pilgrims. He promises to ask the Virgins of the house whether Christian can stay or not.
Christian is allowed to enter, is fed and given an upper room for the night. In the morning he wakes to see the sun rising and calls the room Peace. Surely, here is the Easter story of the Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection.
Stevington’s three pilgrim sites include the early 13th-century cross, the Holy Well — shaped like a sepulchre — and the ancient hospitium with its east-facing upper room, once run by nuns for the relief and security of pilgrims. The three closely relate to Christian’s story and exist very near one another.
Extraordinary geographical coincidence aside, there is yet another strong factor which would have excited Bunyan’s interest here: the alignment of the Holy Well, coming from beneath the east of the church.
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He wrote at length in the Holy City (published in 1665 while still in jail and before he began The Pilgrim’s Progress) on the passage from Revelation xxii, 1: “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
He came back to the same passage again when he wrote The Water of Life published in 1688, again taking great care to analyse all the connotations. His explanations provide further insight to the story of Christian’s burden falling into the Sepulchre and then him drinking from the spring, the source of grace.
A well dressing, depicting Christian as portrayed in the window in Stevington’s Baptist Chapel, has been created for the village’s jubilee celebrations. Details of this and other events may be found at kathybrownsgarden.com