Bibliophile Bliss

I've always loved libraries. My childhood icon was Roald Dahl's Matilda. When Harry Potter took over, I fantasised about being let loose in Hogwarts Library; a labyrinth of laddered shelves and leather-bound books, soft, cathedral-like light and pages pulsing with stories.

So I'll always remember my weekend at Gladstone's Library, in Hawarden, North Wales. Founded in 1895 by former prime minister William Gladstone, the library began with 32,000 books, donated from his own collection, carted there with a wheelbarrow from his nearby home. (He was eighty-five at the time.)

Gladstone's has a history, a past. This is no hipster theme hotel with spraypaint murals of literary legends and mustachioed mixologists serving Tequila Mockingbirds. Originally intended as somewhere for theology scholars to stay while consulting the collection, it's since become a haven for bibliophiles, researchers, recluses and writers. (Over 300 books have been written or revised at Gladstone's, and the library now coordinates its own annual literary festival.)

It was late when we arrived, but residents are allowed to roam the library 'til ten. Forsaking the reading rooms and lounges with their wheezing leather armchairs and spark-spitting coal fires, we ventured into the library proper.

Inside, we found: an abandoned desk, heaped with haphazard piles of returned reads. Exposed wooden rafters like a ribcage, melting into shadow beyond the sporadic puddles of lamp-light. Steep storybook staircases with wonky steps. Stained glass windows, hammered by rain. Hundreds of thousands of books. A warm, rich silence that we sank into like stones.

With only 26 bedrooms for overnight guests, Gladstone's Library feels like a well-guarded secret. For book-lovers like me, it's a fairytale home, a candy cottage; a place too steeped in memory and magic to possibly be real. In the annex, a silent, fluorescent-lit corridor between two rows of rolling presses, we unearthed strange and sinister antique titles, including guides to exorcisms and the occult, The History of Magic and The Evidence for Communication with the Dead.

Later, we snaffled a selection of books back to our room (don't worry, it's allowed), and stayed up for hours: ensconced in a marshmallowy duvet, slurping red wine and reading about art, anarchy, myths and monsters, interrupted only by the hourly chimes from neighbouring St. Deiniol's Church. Matilda would've been proud.