Welcome to Gladstone's Library

Gladstone's Library is one of a kind - a residential library and meeting place dedicated to dialogue, debate and learning for open-minded individuals and groups who are looking to explore pressing questions as well as to pursue study and research in an age of distraction and easy solutions.

Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness.

William Ewart Gladstone

We are committed to maintaining Gladstone's legacy of engagement with social, moral and spiritual questions by helping people reflect more deeply on the questions that concern them. We do not seek to provide the answers, but we do offer a comfortable, sociable and stimulating environment together with resources for creative study - including renowned collections of theological, historical, cultural and political materials.

We enable our guests to enjoy solitude as well as social interaction and like everyone to leave having encountered something they were not expecting - a book, idea or person, for example.

We have an evolving programme of courses and events that keeps us connected with a wide network of writers and thinkers - and makes us worth re-visiting.