Appleby Horse Fair facts for kids

Caravans, including horse-drawn Vardoes at the Fair

Live performers at Appleby Horse Fair in 2012

Washing the horses at Appleby Horse Fair

Horses wading in the river Eden.

The Appleby Horse Fair, also known as Appleby New Fair, is "an annual gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria, England." The horse fair is held each year in early June, attracting roughly 10,000 Gypsies and Travellers, about 1,000 caravans, several hundred horse-drawn vehicles, and about 30,000 visitors. The Gypsy and Traveller attendees include Romanichal, Irish Travellers, Kale (Welsh Roma), Scottish Romani and Traveller Groups and more.

History and location

The Fair is billed as the biggest traditional Gypsy Fair in Europe, and is commonly likened to a large family gathering. The horses are washed in the River Eden and trotted up and down the 'flashing lane' most main days. There is a market on Jimmy Winter's Field selling a variety of goods, some traditional to the Gypsy travelling community, and a range of other horse-related products.

The fair is held outside the town of Appleby, where the Roman Road crosses Long Marton Road. This is not far from Gallows Hill, named after the public hangings that were once carried out there. In the mid-20th century, the story developed that the fair originated with a royal charter to the borough of Appleby from King James II of England in 1685. However, recent research has shown that the 1685 charter, which was cancelled before it was enrolled, is of no relevance.

Appleby's medieval borough fair, held at Whitsuntide, ceased in 1885. The 'New Fair', held in early June on Gallows Hill, which was then unenclosed land outside the borough boundary, began in 1775 for sheep and cattle drovers and horse dealers to sell their stock; by the 1900s it had evolved into a major Gypsy/Traveller occasion. Throughout the Fair's history, no group claimed ownership of the Fair or was charged to attend it, staying to one of the Fair's principles of being a people's fair.

The legal status of the Fair does not depend on a charter, therefore, but on the legal concept of 'prescriptive right': easement by prescription or custom.

Cancellations

The fair has been cancelled twice; in 2001, due to foot-and-mouth, and in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the 2020 fair was held nonetheless with six participants, in response to a Traveller belief that the fair would be lost if it did not occur. As many as a hundred spectators also defied the ban. In 2021, Covid-19 restrictions on mass gatherings prevented the fair taking place on the traditional dates (3–7 June), and on 21 June 2021, the Multi Agency Strategic Co-ordinating Group published a statement to the effect that alternative dates of 12–15 August 2021 had been identified for the 2021 Appleby Fair, subject to favourable Covid-19 data and the national relaxation of restrictions on large gatherings, which were planned to be announced on 21 June 2021. According to police estimates, 300-400 people visited Appleby over the weekend of 4–6 June, mostly day trippers, being a mixture of Gypsies and tourists. Behaviour was described as "very positive in the main". There were "around 10 caravans in the area" and not over 1,000, as would be usual.

In 2021, Shera Rom Billy Welch warned Home Secretary Priti Patel that the event was threatened by the proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, stating that if the bill was enforced, police could confiscate the homes of Gypsies and Travellers if, upon complaint of local residents, they did not immediately move on. Welch highlighted the substantial shortage of approved permanent pitches and transit pitches at Traveller sites, leaving many Travellers with nowhere legal to stop.

Organisation

The Fair is a regular but spontaneous gathering, and is not organised by any individual or group, although the Gypsies and Travellers have a Shera Rom (Head Romani), who occupies Fair Hill under Licence from the Town Council, and arranges toilets, rubbish skips, water supplies, horse grazing etc. for Fair Hill. He acts as liaison with the local authority co-ordinating committee (Multi-Agency Strategic Co-ordinating Group, or MASCG), which manages the public authorities' response to the Fair. The "Shera Rom" is the head of his extended family only, but is recognised as a spokesman for the wider Romani community. Other landowners operate campsites and car parks, and they arrange their own toilets, water and clean-up.

The main activities take place on Fair Hill (the main campsite field, with some catering and trade) and more recently on the Market Field, which was opened up by a local farmer about 10 years ago, and is now the main stall trading and catering area. There are half a dozen licensed campsites and car parks nearby. Most horse trading takes place at the crossroads (known to the local authority as 'Salt Tip Corner') and on Long Marton Road (known to the Gypsies and Travellers as the 'flashing lane'), where horses are shown off (or 'flashed') by trotting up and down at speed.

Many of the horses are taken down to 'the Sands', near the Appleby town centre beside the River Eden, where horses are ridden into the river to be washed, and it is not unusual to see scores of horses tied up opposite The Grapes public house. The highway at that location is closed to vehicle traffic for the main days of the Fair, which are now the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Fair customarily ends on the second Wednesday in June, and starts on the Thursday before that. Although the last Tuesday was once the main horse dealing day, due to the growth of the market field and the large number of visitors, the main day is now the Saturday, with the Fair's activities over by the Monday morning.

Besides the horses, there are fortune tellers, palm readers, buskers and music stalls, clothing stalls, tools and hardware, china, stainless steel, and horse-related merchandise including harness and carriages.

See also