Winter Hill Mass Trespass tea towel

The Winter Hill Mass Trespass, Britain’s biggest ‘mass trespass’, took place in September 1896, when thousands of Bolton residents marched over Winter Hill to reclaim access to an old footpath.

Over three weekends, thousands of Bolton people marched over Winter Hill to reclaim a right of way they claimed had been illegally blocked by the landowner. Whilst the 1932 Kinder Scout Trespass is rightly celebrated, the events of 1896 lay forgotten for many years.

The memory of the event was kept alive by Allen Clarke in his book Moorlands and Memories, published in 1920. He wrote that “on Sunday September 6th 1896, ten thousand Boltonians marched up Brian Hey to pull down a gate and protest against a footpath to Winter Hill claimed and closed by the landlord”.

This tea towel features a popular song written by Clarke himself in local dialect, which urged people to claim their rights and join the next Sunday’s march:

“Will yo’ come o’ Sunday mornin’
For a walk o’er Winter Hill?
Ten thousand went last Sunday
But there’s room for thousands still!
Oh the moors are rare and bonny
And the heather’s sweet and fine
And the roads across the hilltops –
Are the people’s – yours and mine!”

The landlord, Colonel Ainsworth, issued writs against the leaders and won his case with costs, but the people of Bolton rallied behind the trespassers and the fines were paid off. Sadly, the road remained officially closed for nearly another hundred years.