https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2009/aug/01/deiniol-library-hawarden-wales-hotels
A shaft of sunlight through the dusty motes and the perfect pillow formed by that pile of books ... I have nodded off in a few libraries in my time, but I have never properly slept in one. Until now.
A residential library, a house full of books where you come to stay, is a decidedly odd prospect - particularly when it is also a memorial to a prime minister. A holiday at St Deiniol's Library in north-east Wales is definitely not an orthodox tourist experience but it offers a glorious escape from the pace and materialism of our modern lives.
When you arrive at its stout wooden door, it is impossible not to think of an Oxbridge or Ivy League college. This grand, late-Victorian building of reddish Cheshire sandstone and leaded window whispers "studiousness" in a hushed tone.
St Deiniol's was founded by William Ewart Gladstone, that colossus of 19th-century Liberalism who spent 60 years in parliament and was prime minister four times. During the decades of noble public service, Gladstone acquired 33,000 books and, somehow, found time to plough through 22,000 of them. We know this because he also took a moment to keep fastidious notes of every book he read.
Towards the end of his life, Gladstone rejected the idea of giving his collection to Oxford University. It had, he decided, enough books. Instead, he wanted to promote public learning in less fortunate places and, as he always felt he had missed his vocation to be an Anglican priest, he decided to turn his collection into a public library "for the pursuit of divine learning" in his home village of Hawarden, near Chester and within easy reach of the industrial centres of Liverpool and Manchester. Aged 82, he packed up his books, put them in a barrow and wheeled them to the temporary building in the village that became his library. Gladstone planned but never saw his residential library, which was quickly completed in his honour after his death.
"He wanted it to be a fellowship of serious scholars committed to solid and serious work for the benefit of mankind," says Peter Francis, the warden of the library, which is a charity. "It is one of those quirky British institutions. It is remarkable that it survives. We want people to come with fairly serious intent. We want them to mix with other disciplines. We want it to be affordable and we want people to share their bits of truth over a meal or a gin and tonic."
That may sound intimidating but St Deiniol's wears its learnedness lightly. The most intimidating thing is the portraits of Gladstone that watch you from every wall. Each one seems a reproach: why aren't you using your life more productively? Most guests here are clergy and academics who come to study or write, but St Deiniol's is open to anyone and caters for wannabe writers, American tourists and ordinary holidaymakers. Football and racing fans on their way to Liverpool and Aintree have even been known to book a room as a cheap base for matches. There are comfortable en suite rooms, as well as more austere but sweet bedrooms under the eaves, and it is certainly a bargain, particularly if you are on your own, as the rates do not discriminate against single people, unlike so much tourist accommodation in Britain.
The library is situated along one wing. It is an enchanting chamber, the size of a chapel, panelled in wood with tiny stairs twisting to a magical first-floor gallery. It looks like Hollywood's idea of an ancient library and yet it is a humble, working building with an authentic aroma of polish, leather and the slightly damp whiff of old tomes.
Thanks to charitable donations, the librarians add £25,000 worth of new titles each year, and have amassed 250,000 books, with a particular focus on the Gladstonian subjects of theology and Victorian studies. Every book is catalogued according to a system devised by Gladstone, who was a nerdy advocate of three-sided shelves and also came up with the space-saving brainwave of sliding stacks in libraries, which he first suggested to the Bodleian in Oxford.
If you stay at St Deiniol's, you can work in the library from 8am to 10pm and take any of the books back to your room. I start by browsing. Gladstone's own books in the collection tend to be annotated, with the scrawl of "surely quite wrong" next to a treatise on Irish politics. At random, I pick out some titles: On God and Dogs, Biblical Hermeneutics and The Way of the Black Messiah, ignoring an intriguing volume entitled Christian Erotica and the Movies.
Before supper is served in the communal canteen, I stroll to the sumptuous Victorian drawing room, which has a log fire, squeaky wooden floors, leather armchairs, shelves of more homely popular books and Gladstonian memorabilia such as his pencil case and pen wiper.
The canteen meals are tasty, with lots of salads, soups and healthy if fairly basic fare such as vegetarian lasagne and fish pie. Other guests are chatty, but you are left in solitude if you seek it. I spend all my time writing in the library. It is brilliant. If you can avoid the distraction of the free wireless and the TV room (mercifully there are no TV sets in your room), then the books, that library smell and those stern pictures of Gladstone stimulate tremendous productivity. Later on, I stroll around the grounds and walk through the village to the castle that was Gladstone's family home, where his great-great-grandson still lives.
Before I arrived, I was slightly bothered by the religious side to St Deiniol's. I don't, at the moment, do God. Never for a moment, however, did the faith of other guests or the institution feel oppressive. St Deiniol's is as liberal as it is Christian, and is committed to Gladstonian ideals of human rights, inclusiveness and dialogue between faiths. As part of the 200th anniversary of Gladstone's death this year, it is building an Islamic studies reading room and is actively encouraging dialogue between Islam and Christianity.
There are activities, if you seek them: the library runs special holidays, so you can study Celtic Christianity and tour holy sites in Wales for a week, and in September it will host a Gladstone festival, with a performance by the harpist Catrin Finch. But St Deiniol's is perfect if you seek nothing other than peace. Its books and sense of history were a blissful, secular balm. If you visit, all I would say - in a stern librarian's whisper - is shhhhh! This place is truly special. Please don't spoil it.
• St Deiniol's Library, Church Lane, Hawarden, Flintshire (01244 532 350, st-deiniols.com), £45 per person per night for DB&B (£35 for clergy, £30 for students; £12 supplement for en suite)
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