Gladstone's Library.

August 2025 - Tuesday Glimpse
2025-08-12 15:00 - 15:30 (Europe/London) | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Mini-tour and Glimpse of the Reading Rooms
Are you curious about the origins of Gladstone’s Library? Would you like a sneak peek at the famous Reading Rooms?
Built more than a century ago, Gladstone’s Library is one of the hidden gems of North Wales. While the Library is open to day visitors who wish to enjoy spending time in the grounds of this Victorian Gothic landmark, the Reading Rooms are silent study spaces usually only accessible to registered Readers or residential guests staying here overnight.
Steeped in local and national history, this is the UK’s only Prime Ministerial library and a rare example of a residential library. Known originally as St. Deiniol’s Library, it was renamed in 2010 to reflect its connections with founder and four-times Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
By booking onto a Glimpse, you will be given a talk about the building, its purpose, its links to UK and world affairs and the ways in which it has evolved through time. You will also be able to peep inside the Reading Rooms, where researchers, writers and scholars of all kinds come to make use of the extensive collections and to work in silence.
All Glimpses last approximately 30 minutes.

August 2025 - Friday Glimpse
2025-08-29 11:30 - 12:00 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

Talk: Equal Citizenship of the Mind with Joanna Miller
2025-09-04 19:00 - 20:00 | Chapel, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Equal Citizenship of the Mind with Joanna Miller
7pm-8pm, Thursday 4th September 2025
This talk explores women’s fight for equality at Oxford, from the establishment of the first colleges in the 1880s, to 1920 when women were finally accepted as fully fledged members of the university.
In writing her novel, The Eights, writer and poet Joanna Miller gained some fascinating insights into the lives of the first women at Oxford, and the role that suffrage and World War One played in changing male attitudes.
From overbearing chaperones, to climbing in windows and finding loopholes to beat the men at rowing, the lives of the first women at Oxford were certainly never dull!
Joanna Miller is a writer from Hertfordshire whose debut novel The Eights will be published by Fig Tree Penguin (UK) and Putnam Books (US) in March 2025. The novel tells the story of four women from different backgrounds who are amongst the first to matriculate at Oxford University in the shadow of the First World War.

Joanna’s work explores themes around female friendship, feminism and suffrage and is inspired by museums and local history. Joanna works part-time as a bookseller and has just completed an Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford. She is also graduate of Faber Academy and Escalator, the National Centre for Writing’s talent development scheme.
Prior to that, Joanna established an award-winning poetry gift business and worked as an English teacher and literacy adviser. Her rhyming verse has been filmed twice by the BBC, and in 2015 she won The Poetry Prize, run by Bloomsbury Publishing and The National Literacy Trust.
Picture by Lucy Noble Photography.

Festival: Gladfest!
2025-09-05 16:00 - 2025-09-06 22:00 | Library and Grounds, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Gladfest is back!
Friday 5th-Saturday 6th September 2025
The nation’s friendliest festival returns! Save the date and watch this space!

September 2025 - Tuesday Glimpse
2025-09-09 15:00 - 15:30 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

September 2025 - Friday Glimpse
2025-09-26 11:30 - 12:00 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

Talk: Beyond Science vs Art with Selali Fiamanya
2025-10-07 19:00 - 20:00 | Chapel, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
‘The Diagnosis is in the Patient’s Story’: Beyond Science vs Art with Selali Fiamanya
7pm-8pm, Tuesday 7th October 2025
Novelist Selali Fiamanya trained as a scientist and medical doctor, and always found a tension between his aspirations as an artist and his life as a scientist. As he’ll suggest in this evening talk, however, such distinctions are thoroughly modern, and the sciences and the arts have more uniting than dividing them.
In Selali’s case, he understands both art and science as investigations into truth, and these investigations have historically taken many forms. In his own life and work, using the systematic skills of diagnosis and problem solving got him through the thorny aspects of writing of his novel, whilst learning how to communicate a story in an engaging way has helped him endlessly with patients.
In this hour-long event Selali will reflect on doctor-writers from Anton Chekhov to Adam Kay; as well as other historical and modern thinkers, scientists and artists, aiming to blur the boundary between fact and fiction and suggest that each makes the other stronger.
Selali Fiamanya is a novelist and essayist who is interested in the contradictions that define human experience. Before We Hit the Ground, his first novel, is due for publication in early 2025 having been runner-up for the PONTAS and JJ Bola Emerging Writer’s Prize as an unfinished manuscript.
Selali began writing through involvement with radical zine collective Skin Deep, where he wrote and edited fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and visual arts pieces on the themes of race and culture, which were distributed widely, free of charge. This collaborative approach was maintained with several other zine projects such as People of Content and whut?, all championing queer people of colour to produce collaborative, multi-disciplinary work.
Selali’s love for collaborative writing also took him to the traditional publishing world, having worked with a former refugee to write a collaborative narrative non-fiction piece for the anthology Will You Read This Please? (edited by Gladstone’s Library regular Joanna Cannon) about her mental health journey.

Talk: Necessary Women; The Untold History of Parliament's Working Women
2025-10-09 15:00 - 16:00 | Chapel, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Necessary Women; The Untold History of Parliament’s Working Women, with Mari Takayanagi
3-4pm, Thursday 9th October 2025
When suffragette Emily Wilding Davison hid overnight in the Houses of Parliament in 1911 to have her name recorded in the census there, she may not have known that there were sixty-seven other women also resident in Parliament that night: housekeepers, kitchen maids, and wives and daughters living in households. This talk, with historian and archivist Mari Takayanagi, tells their story.
Women have touched just about every aspect of life in Parliament. From ‘Jane’, dispenser of beer, pies and chops in Bellamy’s legendary refreshment rooms; to May Ashworth, Official Typist to Parliament for thirty years through marriage, war and divorce; and Jean Winder, the first female Hansard reporter, who fought for years for equal pay; the lives of these women have been largely unacknowledged – until now.
Drawing on new research from the Parliamentary Archives, government records and family history sources, historians and parliamentary insiders, Mari’s recent book Necessary Women (with Elizabeth Hallam Smith) brings these unsung heroes to life. Join Mari at Gladstone’s Library to learn about women left out of the history books – including Mary Jane Anderson, a previously unknown suffragette.
Dr Mari Takayanagi is a historian of women and Parliament from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, and Senior Archivist at the UK Parliamentary Archives.
Her research interests include legislation affecting women’s lives and gender equality, early women MPs, and women staff in the House of Commons and House of Lords. Her most recent publications are ‘Suffrage Centenaries’ in the Routledge Companion to British Women’s Suffrage (Routledge, 2024), and as co-editor with Erika Rackley and Rosemary Auchmuty, Women’s Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years (Hart Publishing, 2024).
Her monograph, Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women, co-authored with Elizabeth Hallam Smith, was published in 2023 by The History Press.

Masterclass: Ways into Historical Fiction with Joanna Miller
2025-10-11 10:30 - 15:00 | Glynne Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Ways into Historical Fiction – a masterclass with Joanna Miller
10.30am-3.00pm (ending times approximate), Saturday 11th October 2025
Join novelist and poet Joanna Miller for a day masterclass that gives you the tools to get started with historical fiction. This masterclass is suitable for those wanting an introduction into writing long and short form historical fiction; there will be guidance on practical matters such as editing and research and help with creating immersive settings and building a character’s distinct voice.
Led by Joanna, participants will consider ways of creating memorable characters, immersive settings and compelling plots. Over the day, the course will build confidence in writers, providing them with practical tips for moving forward with writing that is fresh and authentic.
This masterclass is suitable for writers at any stage, whether you’re just starting out or your work-in-progress needs a shot in the arm.
Image by Lucy Noble Photography.

October 2025 - Tuesday Glimpse
2025-10-14 15:00 - 15:30 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

October 2025 - Friday Glimpse
2025-10-31 11:30 - 12:00 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

Masterclass: Putting Yourself on the Page with Caroline Crampton
2025-11-08 10:30 - 15:00 | Glynne Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Putting Yourself on the Page – a writing masterclass with Caroline Crampton
10.30am-3.00pm (please note end time is approximate), Saturday 8th November 2025
Join writer and podcaster Caroline Crampton for a day-long detailed look at the craft involved in blending autobiography with other subjects.
This way of weaving a personal journey through a work of creative non-fiction has become very popular with readers and publishers alike, but how should writers go about it? What is the best way to structure and pace a memoir strand within a larger work, and how to find the balance between the different types of material?
As a writer, how much of yourself should you share with readers? What are the possible ramifications of putting too much, or too little, of yourself on the page? Together, participants will explore all facets, from the emotional to the practical, of this highly effective technique for writing. As the author of two books that are structured around memoir — The Way to the Sea (2019) and A Body Made of Glass (2024) — Caroline Crampton has spent a lot of time considering these questions and will explore them here through talks and exercises with class participants.
Photograph by Jamie Drew.

November 2025 - Tuesday Glimpse
2025-11-11 15:00 - 15:30 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

November 2025 - Friday Glimpse
2025-11-28 11:30 - 12:00 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

December 2025 - Tuesday Glimpse
2025-12-09 15:00 - 15:30 | Gladstone Room, Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom

Test RSVP Event
2026-04-06 | Library Main Room, Church Lane, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Register Interest in Easter Fun Day

Name

First

Last

Email(Required)

Number of GuestsMailing List Sign Up Sign up to Gladstone's Librabry Newsletter?Consent(Required) You agree to our privacy policy and what we do with your information(Required)

Testevent-06-11-25
2027-11-30 08:00 - 17:00 | Library Main Room, Church Lane, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3DF, United Kingdom
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque ornare felis ut vestibulum cursus. Pellentesque lacinia elementum erat nec convallis. Sed vehicula, odio sodales sodales scelerisque, nulla enim cursus orci, et tristique neque ex at eros. In malesuada sagittis metus, et tincidunt felis dignissim quis. Cras libero nunc, viverra pulvinar ornare suscipit, luctus non metus. In condimentum odio id aliquam elementum. Morbi at venenatis nisl, ut luctus enim. Duis ex dolor, vehicula sit amet sollicitudin eu, pulvinar convallis sem. Phasellus eget sapien eget arcu fermentum dapibus non sit amet risus. Duis iaculis accumsan luctus. Phasellus ac vulputate sapien, eu rutrum justo. Nunc sit amet varius dolor. Maecenas mauris tortor, ultrices eget turpis ut, convallis aliquet libero. Cras lacus lorem, accumsan non nulla pulvinar, rhoncus pretium eros. Integer ornare vitae leo vel efficitur.
