Last Saturday

On Saturday we visited two museums: the Newton and Cowper museum and the John Bunyan museum.

The Newton and Cowper museum was in a small village called Olney (pronounced Oh-Nee). It was a small museum built inside the house of the great poet William Cowper (pronounced Coo-per). William Cowper was like I said, a very good poet who is quite famous today. He lived in the 18th century in a largish house with a very nice garden. The house is quite large but no where near as big as a mansion. William Cowper used to keep hares as pets, they used to live in one of the parlours. William Cowper was good friend with his minister, John Newton.

John Newton was originally a slave trader but became a Christian and quit the job. He became one of the main people fighting against slavery and lived to see it stop. He used to help Cowper when he was depressed and talk to him about God. Together they wrote hymns like Amazing Grace.

In the museum there were hundreds of things belonging to the friends, some mentioned in Cowper's poem's and some famous like Cowper's couch, from his most famous poem, 'The Task'.

Cowper and Newton museum

outside the summer house where Newton and Cowper met

looking at the Summer house

in front of the famous chair!

 Next we saw the John Bunyan museum. It was incredible! It was a small museum and it was free but it was full of things belonging to or made by John Bunyan! It had the pulpit he preached on (you could stand on it) a tin violin made by him, the door of his prison cell, a flute made by him out of a chair leg and parts of the room were made to look like parts of his house and his prison cell.

statue of John Bunyan

outside the museum

It was amazing!!!