Description

The inspiration for the BBC TV series, directed by Shane Meadows and starring Tom Burke, George MacKay and Thomas TurgooseWINNER OF THE 2018 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE’Powerful, visceral writing, historical fiction at its best. Benjamin Myers is one to watch’ – Pat Barker’Phenomenal’ – Sebastian Barry’Superb’ – The TimesFrom his remote moorland home, David Hartley assembles a gang of weavers and land-workers to embark upon a criminal enterprise that will capsize the economy and become the biggest fraud in British history. They are the Cragg Vale Coiners and their business is ‘clipping’ – the forging of coins, a treasonous offence punishable by death. When an excise officer vows to bring them down and with the industrial age set to change the face of England forever, Hartley’s empire begins to crumble. Forensically assembled, The Gallows Pole is a true story of resistance and a rarely told alternative history of the North.

‘One of my books of the year … It’s the best thing Myers has done’ – Robert Macfarlane, Big Issue Books of the Year