The John Bunyan or Tinker Trail

Tabor room, Harlington Manor four poster bed see booking.com for favourable terms

Harlington Manor, close to Harlington Station is available for bed and a wonderful tasty breakfast. Breakfast can be eaten in the very room where John Bunyan was interrogated after his arrest for 'preaching in a public place'. John Bunyan was a mender of pots and pans and so the heritage trail around the village is known as the Tinker Trail. He was born at Elstow 1628-1688.

After breakfast the non-linear trail can be investigated. The natural inclination is to head for the oak, which Bunyan climbed into and acted as a natural soundboard to amplify his preachings. The interpretation board in Harlington Park is not to scale, and there are areas on the OS map that cannot be ground-truthed, so be prepared to walk out of the village onto a busy road before crossing by this sign and relying on your background reading.

Once into the field I met with a small group of people surveilling the landscape, also wondering 'which oak'. The oak is dead I said, to the person who confessed to being a village resident, and so we cast our sights further to the sheep, where we saw the tree below. I will leave it to your ramblings to discover the footholds on - the offside of the tree - used to climb into the bole to deliver the well-attended free -thinking speeches.

When I posted the tree on Twitter, the sport growing out of the base of the tree was noted. Comments on protecting the regrowth from sheep grazing were made. However, it is probably this or glyphosate managed fields as opposite side of the road attested. The rest of the trail was through souless beanfields and looked like this, so sheep might be better tree - companions than the perennial glyphosate - broad bean cycle.

Broad bean fields for several km. Rooks in the school playing fields change to starlings on the pylons, French partridges and pheasant. A brick-makers pit, now all that remains of an old building and well, all covered in Hart's tongue fern. The pond is not marked on the map (white land) but typha grows here and bullfinch call. John Bunyan's trail after this intriguing diversion is easy - follow the railway to Westonning - the EMR trains posess a smart livery (compared to Thameslink) and are thrummingly thundery.

Guttating oak bracket

This deer hide was on the Public Right of Way (PROW). It was 50m from the road and shooting with a rifle so close to a road is illegal. I walked to Flitwyk but it wasn't an easy walk. The trail through a cow field abandoned due to stampeding cows. I felt and heard them long before they were seen and had to run back to the road. Flitwyk Manor Park now managed by the council. The countryside becomes the new urban.

As with any walk there is good and bad. I will leave you with some highlights.

Harlington Manor

The saffron milk cap to come.

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