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The latest news and views from Gladstone's Library.

Remembering Sara

by Rhian Waller | Tuesday, 19th December 2023

Christmas is a time for remembering. Here, we remember a particular Friend to the Library. In mid-October, one of our supporters Joseph Boughey led a Remembrance Event for his beloved wife, Sara Richards, at the Library.


The Ambassador and the Guardian Angel

by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 23rd November 2023

I said hello to Lilly the dog, whose eyes closed in contentment as I gave her sweet face a pet. “It’s so nice to see you again,” I said, and I meant it.

Author N West Moss offers a slice of Hawarden life, after spending a month in the community



    The Book that Wasn't Written by a Writer

    by Rhian Waller | Friday, 10th November 2023

    Peter Stanley is 90 years old, lives in Boughton, Chester, and is adamant that he is not a writer. Despite that, he has written and self-published a book, KISS: A Meditation on the Art of Wellbeing by Keeping It Simple, a part memoir, part self-help book based on his own life.


    Escaping the pitfalls of 3pm...

    by Rhian Waller | Monday, 23rd October 2023

    "These hours alone, stretched and prepared by all that came before them, seem limber enough to hold new words. At the end of a good day, duration disappears."

    by Jude Piesse



      Vaulted Ceilings and Well-Stocked Stacks

      by Rhian Waller | Monday, 11th September 2023

      It turns out the ideal, for me at least, isn’t a room of one’s own: it’s a room of one’s own in a residential library and also a desk in said library’s nineteenth-century reading room. A blog by writer Laura Evans


        Gladstone's Library Hosts Nick Clegg Talk

        by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 31st August 2023

        Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden hosted a talk on Gladstone and the Metaverse in the library’s Victorian Reading Rooms on August 30.



          Gladfest is Go Go Go!

          by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 17th August 2023

          YOU are invited to a festival billed as the UK’s friendliest literary event.



          Scholarship Applications Open

          by Rhian Waller | Wednesday, 02nd August 2023

          Would a week at a residential Library benefit your studies? We are pleased to announce that our 2024 Scholarships are now open for application. 



            Friends Scheme Refresh

            by Rhian Waller | Sunday, 02nd July 2023

            Our Friends are a deeply cherished part of the Library community. Many have loyally supported us for decades, while others have joined us recently. All of them are sympathetic to the vision of the Library, which includes offering books, archives and spaces for study and reflection, to those who otherwise would not be able to find them. Friends donations are crucial to helping us do that. 


              An alcove of your own with Margarita Gokun Silver

              by Rhian Waller | Friday, 02nd June 2023

              "I came to Gladstone’s Library to finish the first draft of a play (hence the obsessive play reading), and by the end of my stay, I had all ninety-eight pages of it written, typed, and sent out for an initial read to those of my writer friends who don't mind an occasional typo. I have never in my life been this productive."


                Former President of Armenia Speaks at Founder's Day

                by Rhian Waller | Wednesday, 24th May 2023

                THE FORMER President of Armenia visited a Flintshire library to pay respects to its founder, William Gladstone. Dr Armen Sarkissian, who was President of Armenia from 2018 to 2022, visited Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden on May 22 to mark the Library’s Founder’s Day celebrations.  



                  The Case of the Disappearing Tickets

                  by Rhian Waller | Wednesday, 10th May 2023

                  Tickets for a crime writing festival are “flying out”!Alibis In the Archive, a crime and detective writing festival, will take place at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Flintshire on June 9 to 11.



                    Gladstone, Geology, and Genesis in the 1880s

                    by Gladstones Library | Thursday, 02nd March 2023

                    'William Ewart Gladstone, not known for a conspicuous interest in geology, nonetheless starred in one of the period’s last prominent squabbles over the scientific accuracy of the Book of Genesis'.

                    A blog post by archives researcher Dr Richard Fallon (Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, University of Birmingham) 


                    A View from the Audience

                    by Gladstones Library | Monday, 13th February 2023

                    Welcome to Gladstone’s Library – a haven of respite in a busy life. Train to Chester, bus to Hawarden, such a warm greeting at the door. 


                    The Search for Writers in Residence

                    by Rhian Waller | Wednesday, 01st February 2023

                    The team at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden have begun the hunt for the Writers in Residence of 2024.


                      Lighting the fire

                      by Rhian Waller | Monday, 16th January 2023

                      "Around me scurry other writers, presumably of every discipline, each entirely wrapped in our own private creative fury. Table lamps illuminate every desk, so each warm glow seems to hold a discrete weather system of intense concentration."

                      A blog by Writer in Residence Sophie Rickard