Hay on Wye

Here’s what you can buy in Hay-on-Wye: wheelbarrows, chandeliers, old maps, faux Louis XV furniture, fertiliser, vintage clothes, ‘60s LPs, stuffed animals, art (all sorts), in-vogue fashions, wellies, New Age crystals, tin baths, tin cars, rocking horses, rucksacks, ceramics, antique bikes, Barbour jackets, guitars, Welsh lavender (yes, it does exits) … oh, and books.

 

We forgot to mention books. How could we, in the place that bills itself as ‘The first book town in the world’?

 

Hay 2.0

Hay has to be one of the world’s best exemplars in how to reinvent yourself. Before Richard Booth (more on him later) came on the scene in the 1960s, Hay-on-Wye was a sleepy rural backwater where farmers from the wild, woolly Black Mountains and not-so-wild lush border country used to congregate for a spot of shopping and sheep-dealing.

 

Nowadays, the currency is measured in books, plus the wares of a kaleidoscope of retailers (those wheelbarrow- and chandelier-sellers, etc) who have grabbed onto the booksellers’ coat-tails and set up shop. We should also mention that independence rules the day here: there’s not a chain in sight.

 

Here’s a challenge: try counting the number of shops and galleries in Hay. You’ll soon be bamboozled. And here’s the acid test: come to Hay on a wet Sunday in deep, dark December, when the rest of rural Wales is soundly asleep, and you’ll find many of those shopkeepers bright-eyed and open for business. Nowadays, perennial buzz and business define this once-drowsy town.

 

The King of Hay

The town really is remarkable. Its ascent began in the 1960s when Richard Booth, the epitome of eccentricity and self-publicity, arrived on the scene, opened his second-hand bookshop, ensconced himself in the crumbing splendour of Hay Castle, and declared Hay an independent state with its own king (him, obviously).

 

Booth died in 2019, but his name lives on at his eponymous bookshop, housed in a suitably characterful black-and-white building on Lion Street in the centre of town. It’s impossible here to mention every bookshop since they’re so thick on the ground – even the former fire station (Booth’s first bookshop) and old cinema (also owned by the bibliophile magnate) have a new lease of life selling books.

 

In Booth’s considerable wake, other booksellers arrived. Today, almost every other shop sells books, not just dog-eared second-hand books but valuable first editions, new books, antiquarian books, novels by Victorian writers and the latest hot authors, books for children, books on warfare, crime, transport, astrophysics, folklore, crochet for beginners and every other subject under the sun.

 

Woodstock in Wales

And, of course, the town plays host every early summer to the world-famous Hay Festival (Bill Clinton’s ‘Woodstock of the mind’), a glittering literary occasion that attracts not just superstar authors but also agenda-setting politicians, scientists, celebrities and journalists… and, it seems, every single member of London’s glitterati.

 

Hay is a very festive place in summer. Around the same time as the Hay Festival there’s also the HowTheLightGetsin Festival. Run by the Institute of Arts and Ideas, it’s billed as ‘the world’s largest philosophy and music festival, where ideas are born and the imagination is set free’.

 

You sometimes wonder how they manage to squeeze all those shops (and people, on busy weekends) into Hay. It’s not a big place. Castle Street, running along a ridge beside (you’ve guessed it) Hay Castle, leads to the town’s charming focal point, the covered Butter Market. Go down the hill and you’ll find yet more shops and something else the town isn’t short of – cafés, restaurants and pubs.

 

Come on a Thursday for the full-fat market day experience. A little further from the town centre there’s The Globe at Hay, an independent arts centre that hosts live music, plays and exhibitions.

 

Where’s the Wye?

The big puzzle is the river. Where is it? It’s hidden away beyond the shops, but well worth seeking out. Find the bridge across the Wye then follow the footpath – it tracks the old railway line – beside the lazy Wye and its rich rivermeadows, then turn back into the town to complete a rewarding walk that’s the perfect antidote to Hay’s excess of retail therapy.

 

On the way back into town you’ll pass the scant ruins of a rudimentary motte-and-bailey castle, next to St Mary’s Church, built by the Normans. But the stronghold they’re now all talking about is Hay Castle, which looms above the entire town. Also of Norman origin, it was built by William de Breos II, a notorious, all-powerful Marcher lord remembered for his treacherous deeds. In later life the castle evolved into a Jacobean mansion, which suffered fire damage in 1939 and 1977.

 

A castle reborn

Until recently it was in a sorry state. Following a major £5½ million restoration project, it has reopened as a new centre for arts, culture and learning, mirroring Hay’s reinvention as a town. You never know, it might even sell a book or two.