HAY-ON-WYE

'Hay-on-Wye' ( or ''Y Gelli''), often described as "the town of books", is a small market town in Powys, Wales. It is on the River Wye, which is the natural and administrative border with England, and lies within the Brecon Beacons National Park. Hay has approximately 1,900 inhabitants. The nearest city is Hereford, some 35 km (22 miles) to the east.
Hay-on-Wye is the United Kingdom's mecca for bibliophiles, boasting "thirty major bookshops" (according to its Tourist Information Bureau). Most sell second-hand books.
Hay-on-Wye appears to continue over the border into Herefordshire. This part of the town is administratively separate, and is called Cusop.
Hay-on-Wye is twinned with Redu, a village in the Belgian municipality of Libin, and with Timbuktu, the ancient city in Mali.^[1]

Contents

Guardian Hay Festival

King of Hay-on-Wye

See also

References

External links

Guardian Hay Festival

Main articles: Hay Festival

Since 1988, Hay-on-Wye has been the venue for a literary festival, sponsored by ''The Guardian'' newspaper, which draws a claimed 80,000 visitors over ten days at the beginning of June to see and hear big literary names from all over the world.

King of Hay-on-Wye

On 1 April 1977, bibliophile Richard George William Pitt Booth declared Hay-on-Wye to be an independent kingdom with himself as its monarch. He sought publicity by declaring Hay an "independent kingdom" with himself as its king. The tongue-in-cheek micronation of Hay-on-Wye has subsequently developed a healthy tourism industry based on literary interests for which some credit Booth^[2]. He recently announced plans to sell his bookshop and move to Germany; on this occasion local MP Roger Williams was quoted as saying "His legacy will be that Hay changed from a small market town into a Mecca for second-hand book lovers and this transformed the local economy"^[3].

See also

★ List of closed railway stations in Britain

★ Wigtown - Scotland's book town

★ Sedbergh - A book town for England

★ Blaenavon - an attempt to create a second "book town" in Wales

★ Montolieu - book village in South-West France

References

1. Hay-on-Wye is twinned with Timbuktu
, 'BBC News', 7 February 2007, 15:53 GMT, accessed 8 February 2007.
2. Richard Booth
3. Self-styled king of Hay sells up

External links

★ Official website

★ The Guardian Hay Festival

★ Hay Fringe Festival