TOHN BUNYAN'S HOME

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 151, 23 December 1929, Page 13

TOHN BUNYAN'S HOME

CLASSIC LINKS OF RlOl

DANISH INVADERS

Few of those who visited Cardington to see 8101 in th<r air could have realised on what classic ground they stood^ or recognised that here was the parish in which John Bunyan was born, says ; an overseas paper. Harrowden, one of the three hamlets of the parish, is that: collection of houses at the foot of tho: hill—the dene or valley along which i runs the brook on whose banks was thei cottage in which the great dreamer first ] saw light, and where he lived, before migrating to Elstow. • The brook some two miles further on joins the Ouse at Wellington, where, there occurred the great clash with the' Banes during their attack on Bedford.! Here their incursions eastwards were stayed, and they were driven back,' never to return. Over this brook, between Cardiugton and Bedford, is a bridge built by;' Smeaton, the engineer who first estab-. ushed a lighthouse on the dangerous Eddystone rock. In Cardington there lived, and also owned much of the land, John Howard, the prison reformer. The world still recognises him as the great pioneer social philanthropist, and he ' himself died from the prison fever, which he had done so much to allay, when engaged in similar service at Kherson, m Russia. Few, again, would have recognised as they passed through another hamlet —Cotton End—the end of the Cots— that this place had played a big part in agricultural history. It was here that Samuel Laurence Taylor, the vil-' jage smith, had his forge, and mado inventions that still have influence on the world's agriculture. INVENTOR OF THE PLOUGH. Taylor invented what has since been practically the universal horse plough. Another of his inventions was the zigzag, or diamond harrow frame, still m universal use. This he invented in Wilstead Church one summer afternoon, when the dronings of the parson mado him drowsy, and caused him to see the diamond-paned windows askance^ whereby lines of light, as it were, rained down all parallel and equidistant, no line following another, suggesting the application to the harrow. With Taylor worked J. Hart, -whoi afterwards took the Cople forge, ai. mile from Cardington Church, and in-' vented the sickle-lined, tip-over horserake, now as universal in its use as1 Taylor's plough, and the parent of the modern. siekle-Jined cultivator. He invented • many other valuable implements and made steam cultivation pos*' sible. For at the groat trial organisedl by Mr ; Smith, of Woolston, ■ when tha fate of the cultivator was to be decid-' ed, and when, all the great engineers being present, it was found that the cultivator could not be turned at the end of the field to make the return, journey without being thrown over backwards, Hart demonstrated, after all the others had failed, that by usin>* a turn-table wheel tlje matter wa"s quite simple. Apart from the individual value of each implement, the inventions of these two men helped indirectly to provide the wealth that enabled some of our present great engineering firm's tode-1 velop their businesses. The direct teasli results of the inventions did not ex-' ceed £,20, as in both cases the- men: were "jumped" of their due reward. Before they could collect the necessary. £200 for a patent' others snatched them, and the world has never known what a great work they did. WORKS OF ART. Cardingtou Church, said to be tha tourth on the site, carries on its walls a rare Saxon sundial. It also contains good sculptures by Chantry, and; Bacon. At Wood End Cope, near b\the parish boundary, Butler wrote ';Hudibras." At the rectory at Willingtou. until a few years ago. lived the Rev. A. Orlebar, the original combatant of the never-forgotten fight at .Rugby. In the orchard at the Abbey; at Warden, the adjoining parish to this south, grew the pears from which were made the Warden pies, celebrated in the song, "I am. a Friar of Orders trrey, s % old in the streets of Bedford Thus, apart from Bedford, and the part it has played in history, those who .-journey to Cardington can find, within a small radius, attractions o*-' piany kinds which, in its own-modesty} it has not bruited abroad. There are still a few who retain the vernacular which Bunyan spoke and heard, but' which, like other rich vernaculars, has all but disappeared. ■■.■■;•