Includes return travel by luxury coach, guided walking tour in Bedford with morning coffee & biscuits, entrance to The Higgins and Panacea Society Museum.
If you are looking for something a little bit different, this excursion will tick the box as we see the wonderful, the wacky and the weird in the rather delightful town of Bedford on the Great Ouse. We start the day with morning coffee and biscuits at The Swan Hotel, a lovely old Georgian hotel by the river where we met our Blue Badge Guide. Everything we are going to see and explore today is within a stone’s throw of the hotel. This is a fascinating and very engaging historical romp through history from a town on the ‘frontier of the Viking bad lands’ through the troubled times of local boy John Bunyan to today’s modern town, home to one of the country’s biggest Italian communities who came to work in the Bedfordshire brickfields. This is a gentle walk and along the way you may get the chance to buy a Bedford Clanger. A kind of savoury roly poly pastry pudding of meat and potatoes for the farm labourers to take into the fields. During WWII, the BBC music and religious departments were exiled from London during the Blitz, several studios were set up in the town with broadcasts cryptically introduced as come from ‘Somewhere in England’. On the walk you will see the church from where the daily service was broadcast throughout the war and the Coal exchange that hosted Big Bands, including Glenn Miller’s last concert before his plane went missing over the Channel. The walk takes us to The Higgins, an art gallery and museum housed in the house and historic industrial buildings of Victorian brewer and philanthropist Cecil Higgins. The core of the museum is Higgin’s collection of ceramics, glass and objets d’art including the Sleeping Beauty bed. We pause for lunch here. There is a tiny café on site, or you can bring a packed lunch or take a stroll back to The Swan Hotel or town cafes and restaurants. In the afternoon our guide will take you on one of the most unusual visits in England, the Panacea Museum, to explore the world of the Panacea Society – a cult of middle-class ladies who believed Bedford was the Garden of Eden and Jesus was going to come back and live in a terraced house. During the 20’s and 30’s the Society’s name became familiar around the country due to their advertising campaign and people applied to receive the Society’s method of healing through water, its ‘panacea’ to cure all illnesses. The Museum has a small Tearoom where you can purchase a drink and snack before we head for home. Safe to say this might be the quirkiest day out you have ever made with C&J Tours, but it is rather lovely in the grand tradition of English eccentricity.
Thursday 12th September 2024 • £59.50pp
FIRST PICK-UP: Halstead 7.30am.
Arrive back in Dunmow around 6.30pm.
If you'd like to receive our brochure...
Click here for our Brochure
Need more info on booking trips?
Click here for How To Book
Why not book online now?
Click here for Booking Form
Stuck for present ideas? How about a gift voucher?
Click here for Gift Vouchers
Our Pick Up Points
Click here for Pick Up Points
Copyright ©
C&J Tours | Disclaimer | Privacy | Cookies | Terms of Use | Sitemap | Links | Website developed by Sue Lees Consultancy
Registered Address: 8 Belvedere Close, Danbury, Chelmsford, Essex. CM3 4RG. Registered No: 4898321 England. VAT No: 830 6932 30.