This town is like a Willy Wonka factory for book lovers
By Keith Austin
Book Town is closed when we stagger down out of the Welsh borderlands. This is unfortunate, to say the least, as I chose this 100-kilometre, five-day hike along Offa’s Dyke precisely because it ended here.
Unfortunately, Queen Elizabeth II has put a right royal spoke in the wheels by deciding to be buried on this very day and Hay has dutifully shut up shop.
Hay-on-Wye hosts a 10-day literary festival which draws more than 80,000 visitors each year.Credit: Getty Images
Barry, my hiking companion, and I even added an extra night at the Old Black Lion, a 17th-century inn on Lion Street, to give us more time to explore the town’s many bookshops. At last count there were more than 20 of them, some devoted exclusively and wonderfully to just one genre – crime, music, poetry, biography, you name it. It is a Willy Wonka town for bibliophiles.
Of course, when I say “we” and “us” I mean “me” – Barry is The Voice of Reason and Manhandler-in-Chief in case I get too carried away. For this obsessive-compulsive need to collect books is also known by another name: bankruptcy. Hence the presence of Barry, who is a man of great age, wisdom and, for a little bloke, muscle. That said, he collects guitars the way I collect books and his credit card is very lucky we are not in Guitar Town.
Hay-on-Wye or “book town’.′Credit: Getty Images
The border between England and Wales follows the middle of the River Wye here but then executes a sharp easterly turn to swallow Hay into the Welsh county of Powys. This change of direction is so acute that I surmise Hay ended up in Wales due to some boozed-up cartographer’s post-prandial hiccup.
Hay-on-Wye’s status as a book town – world famous for its second-hand and antiquarian bookshops – is mostly down to one Richard Booth, a charming, book-loving eccentric who opened his first bookshop, The Old Fire Station, there in 1962 and was instrumental in successfully promoting the town as a book-loving mecca.
Since 1988 it has been the venue for an annual 10-day literary festival which draws both big-name writers and more than 80,000 visitors each year. Bill Clinton once described it as “the Woodstock of the mind”.
Passersby can even buy pre-loved books at the Honesty Library, two large sets of bookshelves tucked under the outer walls of the castle.Credit: Getty Images
Y Gelli Gandryll, to give it its Tolkien-sounding Welsh name, is a pleasant market town of meandering streets and winding alleyways, full of country pubs with excellent food, cafes with great coffee, and a big old castle looming over it all.
Where to next? Signs direct visitors during the annual Hay Festival.Credit: Getty Images
On the day of the Queen’s funeral there is a small ceremony in the town square by the war memorial followed by a rendition of The Last Post by a chap who appears, ghostlike, on the castle battlements. It sounds like he is removing the intestines from a live goat.
After this, we come upon the Honesty Library, which is simply two large sets of bookshelves tucked under the outer walls of the castle. I find Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy and happily drop the recommended £1 into the honesty box.
I am trying to persuade myself to be content with this consolation prize when we stumble upon the very much open-for-business Hay Cinema Bookshop. I am gleeful enough just to find a bookshop open (sorry, Your Majesty) but then we learn that, beyond the cinematic facade and spread out over several floors, there are more than 200,000 books waiting to be explored in a labyrinth of massive rooms criss-crossed by shelving and narrow aisles.
Here you can find books with titles such as A Field Guide to English Clergy, The Secret World of Weather and F**k You and Goodbye – the Dark and Hilarious History of the Resignation Letter. There’s even a map so you don’t get lost.
I am lost in the horror/sci-fi section when Barry reappears and starts to frogmarch me to the cash register. I run away and try to hide in the Classics but it’s difficult with a leaning tower of books in your arms – and embarrassingly ungainly. Wilde would not have approved.
In the end I am “persuaded” that four books are enough (plus the one from the Honesty Library, and one I pick up free from a local cafe and the one I dash in to buy from Richard Booth’s expansive shop when it opens at 9.30am the next day just before our bus arrives to whisk us off to Hereford train station).
Looking back, it was the perfect place to be when they laid the Queen to rest – among the neat shelves of Britain’s Book Town as the royal family began a new chapter.
THE DETAILS
Walk
On Foot Holidays offer self-guided walking holidays in lesser-known areas of Europe with accommodation in small, family-run hotels. See onfootholidays.co.uk
The next Hay-on-Wye festival runs May 23 – June 2, 2024. See hayfestival.com
The writer travelled as a guest of On Foot Holidays.
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