Unexpected stay lets you sleep surrounded by 150,000 books

Portia Jones lifts the cover on accommodation designed for all bookworms

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BOOK lovers rejoice, there’s a place in Wales where you can sleep surrounded by stories.

Located in the village of Hawarden in Flintshire is the beloved Gladstone's Library, the UK’s finest residential library, where you can sleep surrounded by more than 150,000 books and live out your best Belle from Beauty and the Beast library fantasy (minus the singing furniture).

This is a unique stay designed for book lovers, thinkers and dreamers who want to get lost in the pages of a compelling story before bed.

Bedrooms come without TVs on purpose, and once the day visitors leave, the whole library is yours to browse after hours. It’s the UK’s only prime ministerial library, built following a bequest from four-time prime minister William Ewart Gladstone.

The handsome brick building was built in 1902 by architect John Douglas and paid for by public donations. These days, it’s home to some seriously special archives, attracting curious minds and scholars from all over the world.

According to the library website, when William Gladstone first imagined this place, he saw it as a whole, a place where people could read and research, but also where they could stay, a place that would nourish mind, body and spirit.

The library is open to the public seven days a week, for 50 weeks of the year, with an evolving programme of courses and events. According to the library, the priority is to build and nurture a wide network of thinkers, readers, writers and conversationalists to maintain Gladstone's legacy of engagement with social, moral and spiritual questions.