Sleeping in a library
Dispatch from Writing with the Seasons - March 2024
Welcome to this short dispatch from ‘Writing with the Seasons’. If you’re not already a premium subscriber, you can sign up here to enjoy our essays and audio courses as they unfold season by season.
As spring inches its way across our gardens and through our windows—and the news of the old library in St Paul’s Cathedral opening for an overnight stay—I’ve been thinking about new bookish landscapes and places in which to write.
Monica Wood, a novelist and author of a great writing guide ‘The Pocket Muse’, says that once a year you should take a chunk of time and find a place where your writing and reading isn’t disturbed except for eating and sleeping. This change of scenery and change of routine might just change your life. I agree!
I’ve attended all kinds of retreats, from meditating in a women’s Buddhist centre to volunteering in a house in the Himalayas. Here’s four of my favourites:
Morrab Library in Penzance, Cornwall, overlooks a garden of sub-tropical plants. I spent quiet sunny days in the library. I stared out to sea, wrote and listened to the man next to me blow his harmonica periodically as he studied.
Arvon’s Clockhouse is a cosy writing house in Shropshire (above), which offers individual apartments with nice big desks, delicious food and a fire to light and enjoy in the evening with the company a few other writers.
Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Flintshire is an atmospheric place of red sandstone and green slate where you can stay overnight for daytime and late night access to its very intriguing library with wonderful balcony alcoves (above).
Shepherd’s Dene in Northumberland is an incredibly calm Edwardian country house with stained glass windows, elegant staircases and a labyrinth in its grounds. Very peaceful, I wrote so much here.
Lots of lovely places in the UK to write! Many are not too expensive, or offer grants to help make more affordable. Where else do you recommend? Where shall we go next?
Write amongst books at St Paul’s or Gladstone’s Library, in Arvon’s cosy writing house, with a sea view at Morrab Library or just by Shepherd’s Dene’s labyrinth.
Writing with the Seasons is brought to you by Write & Shine. Our spring programme of writing workshops is inspired by the season's gentle rhythms and slow, steady arrival of the light. Events are virtual, so you can join us wherever you’re based. Our spring artwork is by Paulina Kozicka