Royd Press is based at The Book Case in Hebden Bridge and was set up in 2007 to publish or reprint books of local interest, mainly historical. "Royd" is a common local place-name element which means "clearing", reflecting the originally heavily-wooded nature of the area on the valley sides and bottom (the German equivalent is "roden").
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| Life in the Milltowns in 1849 | History of the Upper Calder Valley | Sowerby | Phyllis Bentley | Nonsense Verse |
In 1849, energetic young journalist Angus Bethune Reach visited the textile towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire and sent his graphic reports to The Morning Chronicle. His gift of reproducing exactly what people said and what he saw brings them and the scenes back to bustling animated life.
Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents: the Yorkshire Textile Districts in 1849 - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris AspinIn 1849 Scottish investigative journalist Angus Bethune Reach toured the textile areas of the West Riding to report on the condition of the working class for the Morning Chronicle (which also published Mayhew's famous London reports). He visited Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley, Halifax, Bradford and Leeds; he praised some employers (Holdsworth's in Halifax, Marshall's in Leeds) but also found filth, squalor, extreme poverty, lethal working conditions and official apathy.Reach interviewed a wide range of people, both management and workers, Yorkshire, Irish and immigrants from other parts of the country. His reports and the words of the people he spoke to bring to life how the glory days of the Yorkshire textile industry felt from the underside. ISBN: 978-0-9556204-0-9 £6.95 |
 "It was cruel to see a hearty man trying to work day after day on nothing but bread and a little milk." "…a choky, mildewy sort of odour … arising from the sodden smouldering piles as the workwomen tossed armfuls of rags from one heap to another" To order this book, click here |
A Cotton-Fibre Halo: Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849 - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris AspinIn 1849, Angus Reach visited the textile towns around Manchester and sent his graphic reports to The Morning Chronicle. Reach visited the mills, interviewed management and workers and described what he saw; went into people’s homes, decent or filthy, talked to the tenants and described the interiors and furniture; he interviewed the Manchester druggists who were supplying an often lethal opium mixture for babies, and the parents affected, talked to teachers, booksellers and librarians to find out what people wanted, recorded the comments of the poor Irish immigrants and visited a Manchester music hall.This book covers Manchester, Ashton- under-Lyne, Oldham, Egerton, Macclesfield, Middleton and Saddleworth. The latter towns were chosen as being different in some way from the “typical” cotton town, so that his reports on Manchester may stand for many of those not mentioned. "A must-have for anyone reseaching the northern textile districts in 1849" - BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine ISBN: 978-0-9556204-4-7 - £7.99 |
 "The heat, the stink, the flying dust were almost overpowering. … The boy … was covered from head to foot with the clinging fibres of floating wool." "The public-houses and gin-shops were roaring full. Rows, and fights, and scuffles were every minute taking place within doors and in the streets. The whole street rung with shouting, screaming, and swearing, mingled with the jarring music of half-a-dozen bands." To order this book, click here |
Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area by Peter
Thomas
Takes us from the early struggle for survival on the bleak
hilltops through the growth of the woollen industry and move down to the valley
bottoms and Fustianopolis, up to the area's decline and revival. ISBN:
978-0-9556204-6-1 £5.99 To order this book, click
here
Calder Valley Offcuts (pamphlets, £2.50 each unless otherwise stated)
Based on Leslie Goldthorp's historical lectures in the 1970s, transcribed by Mrs Irene Mallinson; £2.50 each unless otherwise stated.
1. The Normans and Medieval Times in the Calder Valley - o/p
Three pamphlets on aspects of life in the 17th and 18th centuries as
gleaned from the local Township books. The original source material quoted in
these notes can be found amongst the township holdings held at West Yorkshire
Archive Service, Calderdale:
2. Law & Order: Constables,
Punishments and Prison
3. Overseers of the Poor - Paupers, Doctoring,
Apprentices, Bastards and Workhouses; & Churchwardens
4. Overseers of
Highways - Roads and Turnpikes - o/p
5. John Wesley's visits to the area (£1.50)
6. The
Cragg Vale Coiners - o/p
7. The Rochdale Canal and the Coming
of the Railway
8. Conditions in the Textile Factories in 1833 -
o/p
9. "Tyrants and Hypocrites" - the local fight against
child labour; Interview with a Handloom Weaver; the Typhus Epidemic in
Heptonstall Slack 1843-4.
10: Agitation against the New Poor Law Act 1834
and the Todmorden Riots, 1838
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The ancient hilltop village of Sowerby with its fine Georgian church can be seen for miles around. Jean Illingworth's engaging history weaves her own memories with the recollections of others in her local community to reveal a rich and detailed picture of the life and character of this "very special" place. Many old photographs and illustrations. |
Phyllis Bentley's historical novels for children
Halifax novelist Dr Phyllis Bentley's best-known work is the immensely popular adult novel "Inheritance", first published in 1932, which takes the Oldroyd family from the Luddite rebellion against cropping frames in the early nineteenth century up to the post-WWI years. However, in the 1960s she also wrote three historical novels for children, covering different facets of the valley's past, and combining a lively re-telling of actual events with well-observed local characters and speech-patterns and the places and nature she knew so well. We are publishing these three books as the "Tales from the Tops" series.
| Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley (£5.95) Hilltop handloom weaver's son Dick Wade is pleased to find a boy of his own age to play with, but is he a true friend? Whose is the injured dog found on the moors? And who is flooding the area with clipped and forged coins, bringing the London authorities in with their questions and house searches? A gripping story based on the real history of the Cragg Vale Coiners, giving a fascinating insight into life in the Calder Valley and the local weaving industry over 200 years ago. To order this book, click here. ISBN: 978-0-9556204-1-6 |
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| Ned Carver in Danger - Phyllis Bentley
(£5.95) The second of our reprints of the respected Halifax novelist's exciting historical novels for young people - a 13-year-old boy starts work at a Calder Valley cropping shop in 1812 just as his friend's mill-owning father introduces the cropping frames that will put his skilled companions out of work. Ned's sympathies are with the Luddites who plot violence.. ISBN: 978-0-9556204-2-3 |
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| Coming soon: The Adventures of Tom Leigh: first young Tom, newly arrived in the Calder Valley from Suffolk in 1722, loses his father; then he himself is threatened when as a weaver's apprentice, he uncovers a crime. |
Just for fun
The Jingle Book by Chris Aspin (£4.95)
A new book of nonsense verse! The poems deal with, among other things, a ban on comic socks, a boy arrested for throwing a sausage, post-smoking-ban ashtrays, palindromes, anagrams and much more, including a short story about the Devil's visit to Rochdale. There's also a specially written poem about Liszt's breakfast at Hebden Bridge's White Lion pub on December 15th, 1840.
ISBN: 978-0-9556204-5-4
Tel: 01422 845353 Fax: 01422 844295