At the northernmost tip of a stunning national park along the Welsh and English border exists a town like no other. At first glance, Hay-on-Wye may appear like any other quintessentially idyllic town in the United Kingdom, dotted as it is with charming storefronts, the ruins of two Norman-period castles, and surrounded by the lush Welsh countryside, but this town has a not-so-secret attraction that lures book lovers in by the thousands.
With over two dozen bookstores within its tiny bounds, Hay-on-Wye is the largest secondhand and antiquarian book center in the world. This historic town has created an international reputation for itself, attracting readers and book lovers from around the world and earning itself the nickname “the Town of Books.”
Hay-on-Wye’s status as the world’s largest secondhand book center, and the subsequent revitalization of the small town’s economy, began with one man. Richard Booth grew up in Hay-on-Wye and went on to study at the University of Oxford. Hating big business and what it did to small businesses and small towns, Booth watched the young men he went to school with leave behind their own small towns in favor of big cities, noting just how detrimental this was to rural economies. After inheriting his uncle’s estate, Brynmelyn, Booth decided to combine his love of literature with his resistance to big-business-based economies by opening a secondhand bookstore in Hay-on-Wye. Having heard about libraries closing down across America, Booth flew to the States to buy up the books the libraries were no longer in need of and ship them back to Hay. Stocked with these books, he opened the first secondhand bookshop in 1962 in what used to be an old fire station and called it, aptly, The Old Fire Station. Booth eventually opened another five bookstores within the town, inspiring others to do the same and singlehandedly reviving what was a dying rural economy. His book-buying trip to America only strengthened his resolve to bring life to Hay-on-Wye’s economy; the lifeless malls and shopping centers he saw that took over towns and small businesses weren’t what he wanted for his own hometown.
“Buying a small shop in Hay-on-Wye meant that instead of playing a minor role in a major business, I could play a major role in a minor one.”
—From My Kingdom of Books, Richard Booth’s Autobiography
By the ’70s, enough secondhand bookstores had opened in Hay-on-Wye to earn it the moniker “The Town of Books.” The number of bookstores continued to grow, attracting international attention and inspiring other small towns around the world to also become “book towns” and set themselves apart as destinations. There are now over a dozen such towns full of bookstores around the world, all because of Hay-on-Wye and Richard Booth’s vision for what it could become.
Richard Booth was an eccentric man; his scheme of buying used books in America to sell in bookshops across his own rural town in order to foster an independent economy that would keep the town from falling to the wayside was viewed as a bit out there, but not at odds with his personality. Of course he didn’t know what Hay-on-Wye would become then, but he used his eccentric personality to help draw attention to his town and bookstores. On April Fool’s Day in 1977, Booth strolled through Hay wearing a a faux ermine robe and a homemade crown, declaring Hay-on-Wye an independent kingdom and himself king. The scheme seems caught between being a publicity stunt and a genuine effort rooted in Booth’s well-known dislike of Big Government. Real rallies were held and Booth made efforts to set up a Cabinet of ministers and had a new national anthem written, but as elaborate as it may have gotten, it was only a stunt. A fellow Hay bookshop owner, Anne Brichto, said of the stunt, “Of course it was a joke in some sense, but the Welsh government of the time had to put out a statement to say Hay was not actually an independent kingdom, which Richard loved because they had taken it seriously enough.”
Booth is still referred to as the King of Hay-on-Wye. Upon his death in 2019, signs popped up in bookshop windows, along with displays of black books for mourning, that read “The King is Dead, Long Live the Kingdom.” Though his kinghood might not have been real, Booth’s incredible impact on Hay-on-Wye earned him an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 2004. His original bookstore, Booth’s Books, was sold to a new owner in the early aughts, but he went on to open a bookstore called The King of Hay.
Today, there are more than twenty bookstores in Hay-on-Wye, many of them specializing in specific genres and areas of interest. Booth’s Books, which was renovated under the new owner, now houses a café and small cinema. The Children’s Bookshop, as you may have guessed, specializes in children’s literature while Murder and Mayhem specializes in horror, thriller, and detective stories. The Poetry Bookshop is the only secondhand bookstore dedicated to poetry in the UK. With so many incredible bookstores, it’s impossible to focus on just one’s charm and allure, but one bookstore that is particularly intriguing is the Hay Castle Bookshop with its open-air shelves. Nestled into the ruins of Hay Castle, which Booth also owned, this “bookshop” is open 24/7 and runs on the honor system.
Each year, Hay-on-Wye hosts a literary festival that attracts many, many thousands of visitors for over 600 events that include book signings, speeches, and more. The Hay Festival, which began in the ’80s, lasts ten days and was called “the Woodstock of the mind” by Bill Clinton in 2001. A children’s literary festival called Hay Fever is held simultaneously, as well.
The first “book town” in the world, Hay-on-Wye is estimated to have somewhere near 10 million books in its town of less than two thousand people. These bookstores have put this little Welsh town on the map and revitalized its economy as this community welcomed in book lovers from around the world and inspired others to follow their lead. Charming, idyllic, and full of books, it’s a remarkable little town. For book lovers everywhere, Hay-on-Wye is simply irresistible.