Hay-on-Wye: Where Commerce Meets Creativity

View to Hay on Wye Photo by @Etienne

If you follow the winding roads that crisscross the lush, rolling landscape of the Welsh borders, eventually, you’ll find yourself at a town where time seems to have curled up with a good book. Hay-on-Wye is a place where curiosity and creativity meet in the most unexpected corners, where the hum of the everyday dissolves into the soft rustle of turning pages.

I came to Hay-on-Wye not because I was searching for a specific book, but because I was chasing that feeling—a flicker of magic that only secondhand bookshops can give. These stores are like alchemists’ dens, filled with possibility.

There’s an energy here, something creative, almost tangible in its presence. It curls up the narrow staircases of bookstores with names like The Old Cinema Bookshop or the Honesty Bookshop, infusing every creaky floorboard with a story.

Honesty Bookshop Photo by @Etienne

Wandering into The Old Cinema Bookshop which is what it says on the tin, you’re met with floor-to-ceiling shelves that seem to breathe. The place is so big, 250,000 books you need one of the maps they had out of reception just to find the section you are interested in.

I watched as an elderly man, cane in hand, gently pulled a first edition from a high shelf like an old friend. “Books are a uniquely portable magic,” Stephen King once wrote, and nowhere does that feel truer than in Hay. Each volume is a little time capsule, ready to whisk you away with a turn of the page.

Photo by @Etienne

The town itself is small—just a collection of streets, really but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in soul. It’s easy to get lost here, not because the streets are complicated, but because you find yourself lingering. In Hay, everyone seems to be seeking something, a connection to something deeper—whether it’s a rare first edition or simply a moment of quiet in a chaotic world.

Photo by @Etienne

Beyond the books, Hay is steeped in history and rural beauty. Set along the banks of the River Wye, the town feels like many other small towns along the Welsh border white, middle class with a rural core running throughout—yet it's only a stone's throw from the sprawling wildness of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The mountains loom in the distance, offering the antidote to an all too often stressful world.

Always time for coffee in Hay Photo by @Etienne

But let's not think this magic has happened by accident. In fact nothing in Hay happens by accident, it is well thought through starting with Richards Booth a bookseller who declared himself the "King of Hay." Booth opened the town's first secondhand bookshop in 1961 and is credited with turning Hay-on-Wye into an international destination for book lovers. In 1977, he famously "declared independence" for Hay-on-Wye as a publicity stunt to promote the town as a tourist destination.

Hay Festival of Literature & Arts is one of the most famous literary events in the world and takes place annually in Hay-on-Wye. Established in 1988, the festival attracts thousands of visitors, including internationally acclaimed authors, poets, and speakers. Bill Clinton famously described it as "the Woodstock of the mind."

Curiously, Hay-on-Wye is twinned with Timbuktu, another town famous for its books. It’s a fitting partnership: two places worlds apart, both steeped in literary history, both keeping alive the spirit of exploration and knowledge. Timbuktu, once a hub of ancient manuscripts and scholars, feels like Hay’s more exotic twin—a reminder that, no matter where we are in the world, books connect us all in their quiet, powerful way.

Photo by @Etienne

Hay-on-Wye, creativity isn’t some lofty ideal; it’s in the air, in the hands of the people flipping through books, in the quiet conversations held over cups of coffee. It’s in the way the town embraces its quirky, literary identity with a sense of pride and humour. You feel it most in the bowels of the bookshops, in the dimly lit corners where you crouch down to inspect a spine that catches your eye.

By the time I left Hay-on-Wye, my bag was heavier, and my mind was lighter. That’s the beauty of this town: it gives you space to think, to dream, to lose yourself in stories that stretch beyond the pages of the books lining the shelves.

Hay-on-Wye is a reminder that the world is full of stories waiting to be told, and that sometimes, the best adventures are the ones you take between the covers of a book.

Fast Facts on the Second-Hand Book Market:

• Market Growth: The second-hand book market is expanding rapidly, fuelled by the rise of online platforms like eBay, Amazon Marketplace, and AbeBooks.

• Charity Shops: In 2019, Oxfam sold over 12 million second-hand books in the UK. Other charity shops, like the British Heart Foundation, also contribute millions of book sales annually.

• Online Marketplaces: Millions of used books are sold on platforms like eBay and Amazon. In 2017, World of Books alone sold over 6 million second-hand books.

• Estimated Sales: An estimated 40 to 50 million second-hand books are sold annually in the UK, combining sales from charity shops, online platforms, and independent bookstores.

• Profit Margins: Second-hand bookshops typically see profit margins of 30% to 50% per book, relying on low-cost acquisition, efficient sourcing, and online sales to boost profitability.