John Bunyan · 1678 · road

Bunyan wrote it in Bedford gaol, and his places are allegory - but Bedfordshire has claimed them for three hundred years and there is a waymarked John Bunyan Trail through the identifications. This route follows those: Elstow for the City of Destruction, Ampthill Park for the Hill Difficulty, Houghton House for House Beautiful.

1. 1
   The City of Destruction

   Elstow, where Bunyan was born and where the pilgrimage starts - a man with a burden on his back and a book in his hand who reads that the place he lives in is to be burned, and runs out of it stopping his ears.

2. 2
   The Slough of Despond

   The wet ground east of Elstow, which floods still - where Christian sinks under the weight of his own guilt and Pliable turns back, and Help pulls him out at a set of steps most people miss.

3. 3
   Stevington

   The medieval market cross in the village Bunyan preached at, taken since the eighteenth century as the Cross where the burden falls from Christian's back and rolls into an open grave - the turning point of the book.

4. 4
   The Hill Difficulty

   Ampthill Park, whose steep face above the Bedfordshire plain is the traditional identification - where Christian crawls up on hands and knees and the two who take the easy paths round the bottom are never heard of again.

5. 5
   House Beautiful

   Houghton House on the ridge, a Jacobean ruin now in the care of English Heritage and locally held to be the palace on the hill - where Christian is armed for the road and shown the Delectable Mountains from the roof.

6. 6
   The Valley of the Shadow

   The Millbrook valley below the escarpment, dark and enclosed - where the path runs between a ditch and a quag with the mouth of hell beside it, and Christian hears voices he takes for his own thoughts.

7. 7
   Vanity Fair

   Bedford, where Bunyan was tried and where he spent twelve years in the county gaol for preaching without a licence - and where Faithful is burned at the stake by a jury of Mr Blind-man, Mr No-good and Mr Hate-light.

8. 8
   The Delectable Mountains

   The chalk escarpment of the Chilterns above Dunstable, visible from the Bedfordshire clay for thirty miles - the last high ground before the Celestial City, and the view Bunyan had from every hill he ever climbed.