RIDDLESDEN’S own Ann Lister will be highlighted in history walks during Keighley Arts and Film Festival.

Historian, writer and storyteller Irene Lofthouse will don period costume to relate the story of mill owner Rachel Leach.

She will tell how Rachel stood up to male rivals in the cutthroat textiles world of the late 1700s.

And she will suggest Rachel, who never married, was a local version of Ann Lister, owner of Shibden Hall in Halifax whose story was told recently in BBC drama series Gentleman Jack, starring Suranne Jones.

Irene, in the guise of millworker Nancy Newbody, will lead the walk entitled Mills, Myths and Musings on the afternoons of October 11 and 12.

Starting from Keighley railway station, they will take in Dalton Mill, Low Mill and Whalley’s Timber Works.

Rachel Leach, who lived at West Riddlesden Hall, was described by one of her workers as ‘a bold masculine sort of woman’.

She built Strong Close Mill in 1791, a spinning mill in Keighley that was the forerunner of Dalton Mills.

The walks are free but booking is essential, by visiting kaff.org or Facebook @keighleyfestival.