Panacea Museum Location: Newnham Road, Bedford MK40 3NX [map] Open: 10am - 4pm (Thu, Fri, Sat) Admission: free Seven word summary: the end of the world is nigh Website:panaceamuseum.org Time to set aside: a couple of hours
The Panacea Society was founded in 1919 in the firm belief that the Second Coming was nigh. Where better to be in such dark times than the market town of Bedford, deemed by Mabel Barltrop (Daughter of God) to be the site of the Garden of Eden? The apocalypse of course never arrived, but the society's adherents kept the faith until the very last of them died in 2012. Their headquarters is now a compelling museum, set across multiple buildings, where an amazing tale of unfulfilled prophecy is told... with a special place for Joanna Southcott's Box.
Mabel Barltrop's life changed when she visited Bedford Library and picked up a free pamphlet about prophetess Joanna Southcott. Joanna had convinced tens of thousands at the end of the 18th century that the coming of Christ was nigh, and that they would be guaranteed salvation if they bought a paper "seal of the Lord". She also published 65 volumes of prophecies, locking the best of them in a box only to be opened at a time of great crisis. Most audaciously she claimed to be pregnant with the Messiah, despite being 64 at the time, but failed to deliver and shortly afterwards died. The Panacea Museum displays a caseful of baby clothes sewn by true believers, even a luxury crib gifted by a rich patron, along with personal accounts lifted from the frenzied news media of the day.
100 years later Mabel decided she must be the eighth in a long line of British prophets, and changed her name to Octavia in response. A small but fervent crowd of adherents gathered around her, many moving to Bedford to be close to her home at 12 Albany Road. They too expected Octavia to give birth to the Messiah, and they too were ultimately disappointed. The Society raised money by sending out small linen squares soaked in holy water which Octavia had breathed on, claiming healing properties. The funds enabled them to buy up a group of neighbouring properties which now form the Panacea Museum.
The main building, Castleside, is a fine Victorian house. It was purchased with the intention of being used once, for three days only, preceding the opening of Joanna Southcott's Box. Octavia acquired this historic artefact and decreed that it should only be opened in the presence of 24 Anglican bishops who would be able to adjudicate on its contents. Several bedrooms were set aside to accommodate the auspicious gathering, should it ever take place, plus a dining room for mealtimes and a wood-panelled chamber downstairs for the ceremony itself. A prolonged advertising campaign to encourage sufficient bishops to turn up was run in newspapers, even on the sides of buses, but the Archbishop of Canterbury blanked the idea and the box was never opened. The box in the Bishops' Meeting Room today is a replica, alas, the original being held in a secret location somewhere in the Bedford area.
Several upstairs rooms tell the stories of other doomsday prophets in Octavia's imaginary lineage, including Richard Fathers, John Wroe and James Jezreel. The geographic focus skips around somewhat, from tower-builders in Gillingham to an agricultural community in Michigan, and there are hints of dodgy sexual morals shielded by religious charisma. But everything is played straight, never obsequious or mocking in tone, and what comes across is a fascinatingly objective study of doomsday cults and their believers - always willing to believe the impossible in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence.
The garden's nice, if no Eden.
Cross the garden to reach the Chapel where Octavia held a gathering at 6.30pm each evening to share everything the Holy Spirit had told her that day. Move into the ante-chapel to see several boxes of tiny linen squares and the letter sent out to international supporters to tell them the Society was no more. Head to the Wireless Room to see where community members relaxed in the company of the fledgling BBC. Pass the weeping ash tree Octavia believed was Yggdrasil, flourishing on the site of the Garden of Eden. And enter the Founders House where she lived, along with her second in command Emily Goodwin and a particularly fervent male disciple who hunkered in the attic. Look closely and you should also find the garden cafe, although in March it's not really needed.
When the supposedly immortal Octavia died in in 1934 her supporters were flummoxed. They waited three days in the expectation that she would rise again, then on the fourth gave into the truth and allowed her to be buried. Emily persuaded everyone to soldier on behind the cause, which a few of them did even after her death, and it took eight decades for the last believer to fade away. The Panacea Society then became the Panacea Charitable Trust, still with millions in the bank, hence the museum. It performs an admirably educational role, as well as illuminating an astonishing human story, and is impeccably presented. If you can visit before the end of the world, all the better.
Within 2 minutes' walk:
• The Higgins: Bedford's much-better-than-it-should-be repository of design, art and heritage (free, closed Mondays)
• John Bunyan Museum: Devoted to Bedford's most famous religious thinker (free, closed Sundays and Mondays)
• Bedford Castle: Only a mound remains, but it is landscaped and climbable (and popular wiv da yoof)
• The Embankment: Bedford's riverside jewel, a swan-heavy rowing-friendly stretch of the Great Ouse (idealforpromenading)
