July 2026
Gladstone Library
Gladstone’s Library is Britain’s only Prime Ministerial Library and serves as the national memorial to William Ewart Gladstone.
The library was founded by William Gladstone in 1894. He was eager to share his personal library with others, especially those for whom books might have been too expensive. His daughter Mary Gladstone said that his desire was to “bring together books who had no readers with readers who had no books”.
The library holds 20,000 volumes belonging to William Ewart Gladstone in its Foundation Collection, many of which contain Gladstone’s own annotations, as well as over 150,000 books, pamphlets, and journals in its circulating collection.
It is not open to the public without a reader card, so I was hesitant to take many pictures.
Mappa Mundi
A mappa mundi is any medieval European map of the world. This one is in Hereford.
Around 1,100 mappae mundi (plural) are known to have survived from the Middle Ages. Of these, some 900 are found in illustrated manuscript books, and the remainder exist as stand-alone documents.
The Hereford Mappa Mundi (Latin: mappa mundi, map of the world) is the largest medieval map still known to exist, depicting the known world. It is a religious rather than literal depiction, featuring heaven, hell, and the path to salvation.
The map suffered neglect in the post-Reformation period. By the 19th century, it was in need of repair, and it was repaired at the British Museum. However, the side panels of the original triptych were lost, and the map was detached from its wooden frame panel.
Drawn on a single sheet of vellum, the writing is in black ink, with additional red and gold, and blue or green for water (with the Red Sea coloured red). It depicts 420 towns, 15 Biblical events, 33 animals and plants, 32 people, and five scenes from classical mythology.
Bodnant Gardens
Founded in 1874 and developed by five generations of one family, it was given to the National Trust in 1949. The garden spans 80 acres of hillside and includes formal Italianate terraces, informal shrub borders stocked with plants from around the world, a rocky outcrop known as the Dell, a gorge garden, areas of woodland garden with a number of notable trees, and a waterfall.
After weeks of learning about castles and monasteries and maps, it was such a pleasure to spend a few days in the outdoors.
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