Statue of John Bunyan

A bronze statue of John Bunyan stands on St Peter’s Green in the centre of Bedford. The figure faces down the High Street from the south-western corner of the green, where a ring of bollards and chains protects the base. The sculptor, Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, chose the spot because it was a crossroads and looked toward the site of Bunyan’s imprisonment. Traffic lights now stand close by, marking a controlled crossing. The statue was commissioned by the Ninth Duke of Bedford and unveiled in 1874. Bunyan was an English writer and religious dissenter who lived in Bedfordshire and twice spent time in Bedford County Gaol. Boehm, born in Vienna to Hungarian parents, created the two-and-a-half-ton bronze figure dressed in a cloak and preaching from an open Bible. The plinth holds three bronze reliefs from The Pilgrim’s Progress, showing Christian at the wicket gate, his fight with Apollyon, and the moment he lays down his burden. The Duke of Bedford presented the statue during a large festival attended by people from across Britain, its colonies and America. Visitors find the statue set on a square Aberdeen granite plinth beside the busy High Street. The bronze reliefs on the plinth depict key scenes from Bunyan’s most famous work. A broken fetter at the figure’s left foot recalls his imprisonment. The unveiling in 1874 drew a crowd of ten thousand, with sermons, church bells and fireworks marking the occasion. Nearby, the Bunyan Meeting House houses doors designed like Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, each panel illustrating further scenes from the same book.