FOR the last few months the three distinguished players of Faustus have been sifting through publications and journals of the 19th Century Lancashire Cotton Famine period, as part of a project based at the University of Exeter to archive, preserve, and rehabilitate the poetry of this distressing chapter of working class history.

As featured on BBC Radio 4, they have set some of the texts to new music, soon to be released on CD.

Nominated in the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Faustus are three of the leading lights of their generation: Benji Kirkpatrick (Seth Lakeman Band, Bellowhead), Saul Rose (Waterson:Carthy, Whapweazel) and Paul Sartin (Bellowhead, Belshazzar’s Feast).

Rooted deeply in the English tradition, in 2007 they received a 75th Anniversary Award from the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

On Friday, November 16 (7.30pm), the trio play Lake District Folk and Acoustic Club, at Hawkshead Brewery’ River Bar at Staveley, featuring new tracks from their ongoing Cotton Famine Poetry project.

During 2016 the band were artists-in-residence at Halsway Manor, National Centre for the Folk Arts, in the Quantock Hills of Somerset, where they had unlimited access to the manor’s extensive library, and also where their third album Death and Other Animals was recorded.

Four songs unique to Halsway’s little-known Ruth Tongue archive, lyrics by Bill Caddick and Olivia McCannon, a Chartist poem, and the band’s own indomitable settings of traditional texts feature on the album, which received the 2017 German Critics Award (Schallplatenkritik Bestenliste) in the folk, singer-songwriter and world music category.

Also, between their Cotton Lords Tour UK dates, Faustus will be making a maiden tour of Denmark, and returning to Germany, as nominees for the Malzhaus Plauen Preise (www.malzhaus.de/home/).

Having played the National Folk Festival, Canberra, and UK folk festivals, including Sidmouth and Towersey this year, 2019 sees them heading off on a tour of the UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

There are also plans in the pipeline for new recordings.

The pioneering multi-instrumentalists’ previous albums were Broken Down Gentlemen and the 2008 self-titled debut Faustus.

Benji, Paul and Saul formed the core band in The Transports, the revival and reworking of Peter Bellamy’s ballad opera which proved a sensation in 2017-18 and played to full houses across the country.

Tickets for the Lake District Folk and Acoustic Club gig are available at www.wegottickets.com/event/442574.