Stunning border town transformed by a passion for books
Nestled in the rolling borders where England meets Wales, the narrow streets of Hay-on-Wye are a literature lover’s idyll
Shafts of pale sunlight filter through clouds onto tranquil fields at the edge of Hay-on-Wye. The small market town occupies the northernmost point of the Brecon Beacons National Park on the southern side of the River Wye, which traverses the border between England and Wales. Across the river to the north are the rolling green hills of Radnorshire; to the south and west lie the magnificent ridges of the Black Mountains. Looking eastwards, the cultivated farmlands of the Golden Valley stretch into rural Herefordshire. It is a varied and beautiful landscape of ancient woodland, carpeted in bluebells, and verdant grazing land, edged with bright daffodils. On a clear spring day, the town’s narrow streets stir with people wrapped up against a crisp south-westerly breeze, browsing the many bookshops. Hay-on-Wye takes its name from the Norman word hay, or haie, meaning a fenced or hedged enclosure. Y-Gelli, the Welsh form, means grove. In Norman times, the town was divided into English Hay and Welsh Hay for administration purposes. The town section was English and the south and west area of
countryside was Welsh Hay. Nowadays, its boundary with England is marked by a stream called the Dulas Brook, which trickles down the valley near the remains of the old town wall.
A new chapter
Hay-on-Wye is known around the world as ‘the Town of Books,’ an association built largely by one man, Richard Booth. The self-titled ‘King of Hay’, he opened his first second-hand bookshop in 1962. He had been concerned by the number of young people who were leaving the area for the city and wanted to find something to save his small rural hometown. His idea was to turn it into a place filled with bookshops. At the time, many of Wales’ mines were shutting, and with them went the Miners Institutes and their well-stocked libraries. Booth bought these up and transported the books to Hay. He also bought books from public libraries and shops that were closing abroad and had them shipped back to his hometown. “Wales was a bookshop desert at the time,” explains local historian, Alan Nicholls. “Richard Booth was told it would last six months if he was lucky because ‘no-one in Hay reads books’. But he persevered and was buying up libraries all over the place.” Booth bought up one bookshop in America and shipped half a million books over to the UK in seven large container lorries. “When they got to Hay, the vehicles couldn’t get up his driveway, so he enlisted every able-bodied person around to help unload them,” says Alan. “He was getting so many books he couldn’t fit them in and just kept buying shop after shop and converting them into bookshops.” The town, with a population of just over 1,500, now houses 30 bookshops, with more than a million books for sale. When the annual Hay Festival of Literature and Arts takes place over 10 days in May, more than 150,000 visitors come to the area. The town is most easily accessed by car, with a large car park on Oxford Road, just yards from the Tourist Information Bureau. The nearest railway station is 20 miles away in Hereford, with buses departing for Hay every hour. Richard Booth’s first bookshop was at 13 Castle Street, in an unassuming row of 19th century terraced houses opposite the Blue Boar pub. The building was originally the town’s fire station, commemorated by a Victorian fireman’s helmet still mounted just below the roof. When the brigade was formed in 1892, water was initially handpumped by the crew before progressing to a horse-pulled steam pump, called Firefly. “The horses used to live in a field over the bridge of the River Wye,” says Alan. “When the bell went, somebody would rush across and get them. Opinions differ as to whether or not the horses used to try to run away to escape the task or were so keen they
would rush up the street to the station by themselves as soon as the gate was opened.” Castle Street was once dominated by drapers and food producers. Local produce is still available from Gibbons Family Butchers and Castle Greengrocers, but the thoroughfare is also home to some of Hay’s most recognisable bookshops. Perhaps the most attractive of these is Hay-on-Wye Booksellers, a 17th century building which has retained its original black and white timber fascia and jettying. The shop is rumoured to have a ghost: a lady in a long Victorian-style gown, who is particularly fond of appearing before men.
From castle to bookshop
Across the road, dominating the town’s skyline, stands the ivy-clad castle. It was built in the late 12th century by the powerful Norman Marcher, Lord William de Breos. According to legend, it was rebuilt in one night by his wife, Matilda, carrying the stones in her apron. As a border town, Hay has seen many battles. The castle was taken and set fire to by Prince Llewelyn II in 1233 then rebuilt under the custody of Henry III. Centuries of turmoil followed, including another destruction by fire during the rebellion of Owain Glyndwr in 1402, fighting for independence from English rule, until the 15th century, when the castle passed into the hands of the Beaufort Estates. Much of the original structure had been lost, and between 1600 and 1650, a Jacobean mansion was built alongside, making the castle a more domestic setting. In the Victorian era, a coach house was built, and the castle became a residence for the vicars of Hay, notably William Latham Bevan, who later became an archdeacon, and his daughters. The famous diarist, Francis Kilvert was a regular visitor to the family, and they are mentioned in his works. In the 1960s, Richard Booth bought the castle and turned the ground floor into a bookshop.
Return to glory
The remains of the castle include a four-storey keep and the remnants of the 18th century formal gardens and 19th century terraced gardens. A further two fires, in 1939 and 1977, caused yet more extensive damage. The castle is currently undergoing a restoration project to prevent further deterioration and enable public access. “It’s going to be the first time in 800 years that it’s open to the public, which is amazingly exciting,” says Mari Fforde, heritage learning officer at Hay Castle Trust. “The current work is putting it back to how it was before either of the fires, from the outside at least. The property went up for sale in 2011 because Richard Booth was finding it too much to carry on. People didn’t want it to become a private establishment or hotel or health spa, so the Trust, made up of local people, came together and managed to raise the money to purchase it.” No archaeological studies had ever been carried out at the site, and the discoveries emerging from its depths continue to delight local historians and the heritage community. “There’s a dungeon which was being used as a wine cellar,” explains Mari. “It’s a vaulted brick space which had been condemned. When we were given permission to remove it, we found this huge fantastic arch. Then there are the gates, which are full of surprises. The gatehouse dates to 1200, but the two gates don’t match. We did dendrochronology, tree ring dating, on them, and one side dates to the building of the Jacobean mansion circa 1640.
We carbon dated the other gate, and it came back as circa 1340, which was when there was a lot of fighting here. We think it’s the oldest defensive hanging gate in situ in the country.” The thick nail-studded gates, approximately 10ft (3m) high to enable riders on horseback to pass through them, will take pride of place when the castle opens to the public in early 2020. An enduring presence on the lowest terrace of the castle is an open-air honesty bookshop, started by Booth in the 1960s. “He would buy books by the thousand. A lot of them were fairly rubbish, and he’d put them here in the open in front of the castle,” says Alan Nicholls. “You were alright if you got here the first day when it hadn’t rained, but after that you would end up with some very soggy books. It was popular though.” Today, the books are slightly protected from the elements by small wooden lean-tos, but it still uses a box, with any book costing £1.
Markets and fairs
At the foot of the castle steps, Castle Square is home to the old Town Hall, known as the Cheese Market. The building was erected in 1840 on the site of a pre-17th century guildhall and in the 19th century was used as a court, a theatre, a Masonic hall and a church. It was the lower part, now dedicated to displays about Hay’s history, which was initially a cheese market. A statue of Henry VII, the Welsh King of England, is mounted on the side of the building facing Castle Street. Every Thursday, the main market is held in the square from 8am to mid-afternoon. More than 40 stalls offer shoppers the choice of everything from seasonal produce to handmade soaps, haberdashery, breads and cakes, and fresh fish and game. Peter Ford, a local historian and author who runs heritage and literary tours around Hay alongside Alan, says that its markets have been a huge part of the town’s identity for more than 700 years. “The cattle market was held in the main street until 1919. As well as regular produce markets, there was a horse fair every year, then, twice a year, a hiring fair where employers would find their labourers for the next six months. It was big business and important economically for the town. Francis Kilvert hated them because they had a reputation for being somewhat debauched, as the young workers knew it was their last night of freedom before half a year of employment.” In addition to the main market, a popular produce market is held every Saturday as well as a flea market on Friday and Saturday and a Friday vintage market comprising clothing, collectibles and homeware.
Diverse community
Even on a bracing spring day, Shepherd’s Ice Cream Parlour, with its elegant green and cream coloured frontage facing the square, is a welcoming sight. The café is distinctive for its sheep’s milk ice cream, produced by local family-run company Shepherd’s Ice Cream for the past 30 years. Sheep’s milk has a high milk solid content, so no cream is used in the ice cream, meaning it is much lower in fat than a conventional scoop. The result is a deliciously smooth, creamy dairy ice cream, but with half the fat. “Everybody knows Shepherd’s. Even when it’s cold, people still eat ice creams and sorbets, though there is
obviously more demand in summer,” says owner, Jess Hope-Jones. “We work hard to do everything seasonally, using foraged ingredients when possible. In the colder months, this includes damsons and sloe gin, then moving into flavours such as elderflower and citruses when it begins to warm up. My mother grows all our salad leaves and herbs, as well as the fruit for the cakes and jams in our café, from her home in Dorstone just down the road in the Golden Valley.” Jess describes Hay as “a special place, just far enough away to feel quite magical and isolated”. She particularly appreciates its diversity of characters. “I can look around the café and see an artist, a director, a midwife, an architect. People are involved in each other’s lives too, and they tend to stay,” she says. “When I’m returning from a trip away, and I see the misty, glorious green hilly landscape, I get excited every time.”
Characterful buildings
Just off the square, the colonnaded Buttermarket was erected in 1833, on the site of the Old Market House, to give shelter to traders. The building was walled up just after the Second World War, but was opened and restored in 1985 to provide further space for events and stalls. Although many of the town’s buildings have been rendered, the original timber and plaster frontage has survived on several examples. From the square along Market Street, above the sign of a gift shop named Charlotte of Hay, it is possible to make out the carpenter’s marks etched onto the beams. A few feet to the right, at the bottom of Bell Bank, sits the Baptist chapel, the oldest still standing in Wales. It was established circa 1650 and built into the town’s medieval walls, then rebuilt in 1877. After becoming a school for many years, it is now empty, with efforts ongoing to preserve its history. Walking towards the river and the bottom end of the town, Bell Bank gives way to Lion Street, where some of the most famous of Hay’s bookshops can be found. At the tiny Murder and Mayhem store, detective fiction, true crime and horror books vie for space with monsters on the ceiling, a body outline on the floor and the shop’s dazzling blue interior. On the opposite side of the street stands Richard Booth’s Bookshop, a three-storey emporium, which was once the entrepreneur’s main site in Hay. The striking building was
“The words, if the book be eloquent, should run thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye” Robert Louis Stevenson, A Gossip on Romance
originally an agricultural warehouse belonging to ironmongers, Robert Williams and Sons, built in 1886 and designed with large openings to allow deliveries from tractors and lorries. At the end of the First World War, a huge ball was held on the top floor. Some of the decorative tiles depicting sheep and cattle have survived around the shop entrance. Booth sold the business 10 years ago, and it has diversified to include a small cinema and café, as well as hosting classical music concerts and community events. Inside, browsers and buyers perch on solid church pews or sink into more comfortable armchairs, while the children’s section is designated by a beautiful marbled floor of sparkling koi and lily ponds. Where Lion Street meets Broad Street stands the impressive Hay Town Clock. The 65ft (20m) Gothic tower, with chamfered angles and an open bellcote, was designed by the architect J C Haddon and built in 1884. It originated from a legacy by a Captain Brown to provide a clock for the church tower. This idea was expanded by his executors to include the town clock, public hall and corn exchange, but only the former was ever built, at a cost of £600. One of Hay’s most notorious former inhabitants is the only solicitor ever hanged for murder in the UK, Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong. He was convicted in 1922 in a high-profile case for supposedly poisoning his wife with arsenic. Armstrong lived in the nearby village of Culop and worked from his practice on Broad Street, still home to a law firm now. He told the jury he only used the poison to kill dandelions in his garden, but they were not convinced. The case has been studied by a number of criminologists and historians in recent times, who have cast doubt upon the solicitor’s guilt. Hay was once home to at least 34 public houses, and the oldest surviving inn, the Three Tuns, still welcomes locals and visitors through its historic doors. Inside the three-bayed, 16th century building are cruck frames, which used natural bends in tree trunks to provide single-piece beams from the floor to the top of the roof. The stone walls visible today are most likely 18th or 19th century. Original features include its huge inglenook chimney, dog-leg staircase and a small platform outside which once helped customers mount their horses safely. In 1963, five members of the Great Train Robbery gang spent a couple of hours drinking at the pub while on the run. Leaving the town centre, Swan Bank, with the River Wye to the right, leads past Hay Tump, the remains of a motte and bailey castle dating to the medieval period. The monument is widely thought to have been the precursor to Hay Castle, mentioned in records from the reign of Henry I.
The small motte measures 69ft (21m) in diameter across the summit and is 15ft (4.6m) high. During the Second World War, an observation tower was built on the western side, though all that remains today is a square concrete pad and iron pole.
Antiques and rarities
Some of Hay-on-Wye’s bookshops have spread outside the town centre into the residential streets of its outskirts. Darren Bloodworth runs Arden Books from a cosy book room stacked floor to ceiling with approximately 3,000 volumes, old and new. The business was founded by his in-laws, Chris and Catherine Arden, in 1980. Specialising in all aspects of natural history, gardening and botany, they sell everything from field guides to academic tomes and finely illustrated and antiquarian books. Darren took up the mantle in 2011 after working with
his family for several years. “I’m a geographer by background, which lends itself well to these subject areas,” he explains. “It is very interesting and was easy to move into. We’ve got one of the best, if not the best, range of beekeeping books in the country, from brand new to incredibly rare works from the late 16th century. Some of the people buying and browsing these are hobbyists; some are commercial beekeepers; some are just people collecting books.” He advertises new stock in his catalogue, with collectors calling up to see if they have been quick enough to snap up any of the newly listed rarities. Although only approximately 10 per cent of his trade is to passing customers, Darren believes there is definitely an advantage to being in Hay. “It’s known internationally, and for good reason,” he says. “Personally, there’s nowhere I’d rather be because it is so beautiful. At Hay Bluff, there’s this incredible panoramic vista stretching across. Then, if you just turn the other way, you are straight into the valley, and it’s a completely different landscape within 50 yards or so.” Books have been an integral part of Hay’s identity for almost half a century, and the relationship shows no signs of abating. However, there is much more to this historic market town than bookshops. It has a pleasant sense of disconnectedness, of always being only a few footsteps from beautiful natural scenery. “There’s a seam of independent creativity around here,” adds Mari Fforde. “It’s an interesting town because it’s not very Welsh, but it isn’t English either. It has this border identity where it doesn’t fit into either camp. And that suits us fine.”