From their hideout on the Pennine Moors, the Cragg Vale Coiners changed the face of forgery, brought wealth to a dying valley and almost crashed Britain’s economy. Heroes or villains? Thugs or liberators? Try this walk and decide for yourself…
THE YEAR IS 1760, and you’ve just arrived in the West Yorkshire valley of Calderdale. It’s a time of massive upheaval.
The woollens industry, which boomed during the strife of the Seven Years War, is heading into a steep decline. And that means trouble for this valley.
Most people in Calderdale are employed at the loom, producing the high-quality, hard-wearing worsted cloth which is the mainstay of Britain’s military uniforms. The end of the war means demand for that cloth is tailing off.
Industrial progress is encroaching, too. The tentacles of industry are spreading out from the flourishing cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds in the form of canals, railways and steam-powered production. And as these tendrils reach Calderdale, an entire skilled workforce is facing oblivion.
One man has realised how this is going to change this landscape irrevocably - and the Calderdale way of life with it. His name is David Hartley. One day, they’ll call him King.
KING DAVID AND SID THE SNAKE
The year is 2023. It’s approaching the height of summer, and with the heady scent of rowan and hawthorn in the air, a friend and I have come in search of that man, David Hartley. Ascending from Cragg Vale, every footstep is a reminder that industry has left a legacy here.
We pass a derelict building which was once a cotton mill, and a paper mill before that. The footpaths take us to Erringden Moor, leading us ever closer onto the King’s land. Not King Charles III, I might add. I’m talking about King David.
In the time of David Hartley, this was a dangerous place to try going for a walk. But thankfully I’m in the safe company of someone who knows this story very well. My companion is actor Rob Galloway, who played ‘Sid the Snake’ in the recent BBC2 series, The Gallows Pole, directed by Shane Meadows. The series is an adaptation of Benjamin Myers’ novel, which itself was inspired by the true story of the Cragg Vale Coiners, a Yorkshire counterfeiting gang in the 1760s. Plying their trade high on Erringden Moor, above the village of Cragg Vale, ‘King’ David Hartley led the Coiners unhindered for nearly a decade, masterminding an operation which staved off the ruin of Calderdale - and in doing so, almost brought the British economy to collapse.
