Real-life Robin Hood robbed rich to save town and inspired BBC's Gallows Pole
In a quiet edge of a hilltop graveyard, a couple are picking their way among the ancient headstones, eyes down, carefully searching.
Finding the place they are looking for, they stop and kneel to lay a handful of coins on a flat, weathered grave.
It's a strange scene but one all too familiar to residents in the historic village of Heptonstall, West Yorks.
For centuries, visitors have been coming to pay tribute at the grave of local legend, David Hartley, the master criminal many will have never heard of, until now.
A powerful new Shane Meadows drama launches on Wednesday night called The Gallows Pole, showcasing the lives of Hartley and the Yorkshire Coiners - a brutal but cunning gang who made and shared forged currency in the 1700s.
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Steve Hartley (centre) with the show's Sophie McShera, who plays Grace Hartley, and Michael Socha, who stars as DavidThey were expert 'clippers', taking slivers of gold from individual coins then smelting them down to make fake ones.
But what made them just as famous locally was what they did with the cash.
Lauded as a real life Robin Hood, 'King' David and the gang shared the spoils with their impoverished community.
The scale of their fraud was huge. They forged £3.5million of currency (£650million in today's money). Almost one in 10 English coins were thought to be fake, many made at Hartley's isolated moorland farmhouse.
Shane says: "It may have turned into one of the biggest crimes in British history, but it was pulled off by a bunch of destitute farmers and weavers doing what they had to do to survive.
Lyndsey Place, barmaid at the Cross Inn (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)"I think people will resonate with that.
"I'm always drawn to stories about communities. The initial thing was, 'Why on earth has this story not been told?"
Despite the best efforts of the authorities, the gang got away with it for years, protected by people they helped.
When David was finally caught – betrayed by one of his men – and hanged in 1770, villagers lined the steep hill to the graveyard, throwing down flowers as they hauled his body on a cart.
For local kids, it's a familiar tale, taught in schools across the Calder Valley. But outside of West Yorkshire, the story of this forgotten folk hero is barely known.
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The BBC has turned the piece of local history into a new drama (BBC/Element Pictures (GP) Limited/Objective Feedback LLC/Dean Rogers)The new BBC2 show is based on the best-selling book by Ben Myers, who lives in the valley below Hartley's resting place.
It stars Michael Socha as Hartley, and also features Charlotte Ockleton, Sophie McShera and Thomas Turgoose.
Charlotte says the drama reflects the struggles many people today face in the crippling cost of living crisis. She adds: "It's not like they want to do it just to be greedy, they need to do it to survive.
"If you have to feed your kids, you'll do anything. It's very relevant to now."
That sense of relevance remains vivid for David's relatives. After he was caught, his widow Grace bought a farm with money the Coiners had hidden. The family stayed in the valley for generations. Hartley's great-grandson five times removed, Steven Hartley has written a book called The Yorkshire Coiners: The True Story of the Cragg Vale Gang.
The 56-year-old construction supervisor, who lives in Northampton, says: "David is a bit of a hero. Obviously he was making money for himself but he was looking after his community, when nobody else was. This was when the world was changing, the industrial revolution was coming.
David Hartley became a hero to local folk (BBC/Element Pictures (GP) Limited/Objective Feedback LLC/Dean Rogers)"People were struggling, living off the land, hand to mouth, not always having enough. People starved. David Hartley helped these people.
"My dad and I walked over the moor to the house where he lived. There was a fire burning in the hearth and it wasn't hard to imagine David Hartley there.
"Clipping had been done before but they were organised, they passed the money through many different hands, innkeepers, butchers, they must have all been in on it.
"When they brought his body up to Heptonstall he was welcomed as a hero.
"Like Princess Diana, people throwing flowers as the cart with his body on was brought up the hill. I'm glad people are getting to hear his story.
Rebecca Lan Cave, trustee of of Heptonstall Museum (Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)"The family has changed since the Coiners' time. My dad was a police officer. We joke that if he stood on the grave you'd feel David spinning in it.
"There was brutality too, of course, these were brutal times, but he was more Robin Hood than Dick Turpin."
Hartley and his gang weren't afraid to use force to silence anyone who threatened to betray them.
They murdered excise officer, William Deighton, and when a drunken worker, Abraham Ingham, blabbed about knowing who did it in village pub The Cross Inn, he met with a gruesome end.
Furious locals locked the door before putting hot coals down his trousers and holding him in the fire, headfirst.
New Shane Meadows drama tells the extraordinary story of brutality and kindness (BBC/Element Pictures (GP) Limited/Objective Feedback LLC/Dean Rogers)The pub is still open. Today it feels distinctly less murderous, busy with people enjoying real ale and Thai food.
Manager, Matthanee Nilavongse says they are celebrating the drama with a special screening.
She adds: "We're looking forward to seeing it all on screen, we're excited for the local history."
Staff member Lyndsey Pace, 56, says: "We call him King David here.
"We had a big display, decorations up all about the Coiners. It's a big part of the history of this valley.
"Times were so hard and he did what he had to do. He was on the side of the ordinary man wasn't he? It's still such a powerful story."
At the village's newly renovated museum, volunteers are keen to see what people make of the drama.
The 17th-century building was used for filming - viewers will spot it doubling as a rowdy pub – and is hosting its own Coiners exhibition trustee Rebecca Lan Cave revealed.
Volunteer Nicola Jones, 58, says: "It's a mixture of a love story and a community story, even the local cat, Scarf, is in a few scenes. It's a story that speaks to the world we're living in."
Steve adds: "People say, 'If you could meet anyone from history, who would it be?' My answer is always the same, David Hartley, King of the Coiners. He's always at the top of my list."
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