Royston, British Columbia 3.85

Royston is a small seaside hamlet which is part of the greater Comox Valley region, 100 km northwest of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is situated next to the Trent River, across the harbour from Comox and just southeast of the municipal boundary of Courtenay. Royston is home to just over 1200 people.HistoryIn the early 1900s, Royston was, and continues to be, the major port for the Comox Valley logging industry. Logs were shipped here by rail, boomed in the harbour, then towed across to the B.C. Mainland to be made into lumber.William Roy and his family settled here in 1890, collaborating with a real estate promoter named Frederick Warren to lay out a townsite that they named Royston. The settlement could have been named as "Roy's Town" but could also have been named after Warren's home town of Royston in Hertfordshire - or both.Early Settlement William Roy was one of the first to clear land in Royston. Originally from Scotland, William came from Westville, Nova Scotia arriving in the Comox district in 1890. Although he was bound for Cumberland, on the ship that brought him up from Nanaimo he met James Dunsmuir. Dunsmuir owned large tracts of land and invited Roy to look around for an area he might like to buy. Roy decided on beach property that would now straddle both sides of Royston Road on the east side of the Island Highway and north of the Trent River. Roy with a real estate promoter named Frederick Warren created village lots in 1910. By 1912 Royston had 30 settlers. A rail line between Royston and Cumberland provided easy daily travel between the two settlements from 1914 to 1930. This service lead several Cumberland residents to build summer homes at Royston and Gartley beach on the south side of the Trent River.