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Home Is Where the Horses Are for a Threatened Culture

The Appleby Horse Fair draws tens of thousands of Gypsies and Irish Travellers each year to a rural patch of England to celebrate their culture. Our photographer spent four days there.

A highlight of the Appleby fair. Credit...

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Photographs by Mary Turner

Written by Eric Nagourney

Mary Turner went to Appleby-in-Westmorland, England, to photograph and report for this article.

• Published July 15, 2023 Updated July 17, 2023

There is the world, and then there is Appleby.

Appleby as in the annual Appleby Horse Fair, where thousands of Irish Travellers and Gypsies gather in northwest England for the rare pleasure of being not shunned by communities, but embraced.

“When we come to a place like Appleby Fair and sit around the campfires, it gives a sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of ancestry,” said Billy Welch, an organizer. “We feel for that week that we are actually home.”

Life has never been easy in England for Irish Travellers or for Gypsies, as many still refer to themselves (elsewhere, many view the term as pejorative and prefer Roma or Romany).

Both originated as nomadic groups many centuries ago, with the Romany migrating to Europe from northern India and the Travellers emerging in what is present-day Ireland. In England, Appleby has knit the community together year after year.

The fair’s roots trace to the 1700s, when traders from across the United Kingdom began setting up camp each June in the rural Cumbrian town of Appleby-in-Westmorland. And for all the trappings the fair has taken on since then, horses remain the stars.

They are bathed in the River Eden. They are raced through the streets and paraded with fanfare — the “Flash,” it’s called. They are still bought and sold.

“I’ve been coming all my life, since I was little, and my family has been for generations, buying and selling horses,” said Riley Gaskin, a 26-year-old from Derby. “It’s a holiday and a business all rolled into one.”

Many fairgoers’ families have made England home for hundreds of years. But life has often been hard.

Poverty and poor health are widespread, and many communities are openly hostile to their encampments. Even “sedentary” Gypsies — those who have given up the road — face discrimination.

“People tell us to go back to where we come from,” said Mr. Welch, the fair organizer. “My family has been in Darlington for decades and we still get that now.”

And it is getting worse, they say.

Sophie-Lee Hamilton and her partner, Tom Smith, said their trailer had been attacked on roadsides — once when Ms. Hamilton was alone with their three young children.

“They try to stop Appleby every year,” Mr. Smith said, “but everyone would still turn up.”

During the festival, Appleby, a town of 3,228, suddenly finds itself playing host to as many as 30,000 visitors.

And it can be a hard-partying crowd.

“We can feel the atmosphere change if there’s going to be any problems,” said Ruth Harper, a police constable.

The fair has little in the way of formal organization, and Kevin Hope, a visitor from Darlington, acknowledged that there could be misbehavior. “Everywhere you get gooduns, you get baduns, but we all get tarred with the same brush,” he said.

Some businesses close during the five days of the fair, and some residents are openly unhappy about it.

But Constable Harper said she looked forward to the fair. Using an Irish word for fun as the festivities drew to a close one evening, she said: “All day, everyone was really happy. It was really chilled, really good craic.”

When Mr. Hope first came to Appleby, he was so small he could fit into a fruit crate. “I first came in here in an orange box,” he said, “in the front of an iron-tired wagon with a bow top.”

He’s 60 now, but families are still bringing children to the fair, often dressed in traditional garb.

Mr. Welch gestured toward children playing nearby.

“If you said to these: ‘Do you want to go to Disneyland or do you want to go to Appleby?’ there’d be no contest.”

For some who spend much of the year resigned to the conventions of the modern world, the Appleby fair is a chance to live their traditions.

Those who own the traditionally green-painted wagons take them out of storage for the trip, which may take several weeks. It is a decision both sentimental and strategic.

“You don’t get the abuse with a wagon that you would in a trailer,” said Becky Lumb, 35 , who traveled to the fair from Bradford, in northern England. “People see there is a tradition and romance to it.”

Once at the fair, they pitch tents and look for friends and relatives, whom they may not have seen since the year before.

Some are keen to look at the horses. Others — teenagers, mainly — are keener to have a look at one another.

More than one romance has been born amid the wagons, trailers and tents that dot the field of Appleby each June, and so the younger participants often do not venture out before getting their attire just right. But there is no rush: The days are long, so are the evenings.

Sometimes, even the weather cooperates.

“It’s been a lovely fair,” said Mr. Hope as this year’s Appleby drew toward a close. “It’s been a bit hot, but it’s far better hot than wet.”

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Appleby ticketing proposals ‘not as simple as some like to think’ – says Billy Welch

Proposals to ticket and licence the annual Appleby Horse Fair are “not as simple as some like to think,” says Billy Welch, adding that he was more than willing to sit down with local residents to work together to “address genuine concerns and to improve the fair”.

The Travellers’ Times caught up with Billy Welch, the Romany Gypsy representative on Appleby Fair’s ‘support group’ after Eden Council, also on the support group recently pledged at a meeting in Appleby Public Hall to commission ‘independent experts’ to investigate the “legalities” of Appleby Horse Fair becoming an organised and ticketed event.

“Eden Council have looked at Appleby Fair becoming ticketed or licenced before, about 15-20 years ago, and it was not physically possible,” Billy Welch, told the Travellers’ Times. “I am not going to pre-judge any review and hopefully it will come up with some good ideas, but it’s not as simple as some people would like to think,” added Billy Welch, who is Shera Rom - or ‘head Gypsy’ - for his extended family. “Fair-goers already pay to stay in the campsites and to park their cars, so to some extent Appleby is already ticketed,” said Billy Welch. “But you can’t charge people for a ticket for being on a public highway in Cumbria, or for walking through Appleby Town to the River Eden, on the weekend of the fair any more than you can charge people to visit Blackpool and go to the beach on a bank holiday weekend.”

“I did warn Eden Council 23 or 24 years ago that if more local land-owners opened up extra campsites they would let the genie out of the bottle. I said the fair going to get too big and it will smother the traditional Gypsy fair on Fair Hill, Billy Welch told the Travellers’ Times. "I said once the genie is out of the bottle it will be really hard to get it back in. But they didn’t listen to me. And now it’s me and my people who are getting the blame.”

Appleby Fair Communities Group, who say they represent local residents, are also pushing for a local referendum on the Fair’s future.

A spokesperson told the Cumberland Herald: “Our members are tired of the yearly Horse Fair not being run correctly, we are tired of not being listened too and tired of telling authorities that it is out of control and unsafe.” 

Billy Welch responded by telling the Travellers’ Times that he was willing to sit down with local resident groups and would welcome any good ideas and initiatives that would “improve the experience of the Fair for both the local community and genuine Gypsies and Traveller fair-goers.”

Appleby Fair in Cumbria, which now attracts between 40-60,000 Gypsies, Travellers, non-Travellers, tourists and sightseers for one weekend in every June, is currently an unlicenced gathering and is “supported” by the Fair’s Multi-Agency Strategic Co-ordinating Group.

The Fair’s agency group is chaired by Eden District Council with support from representatives of the Gypsy and Traveller community, South Lakeland District Council, Cumbria County Council, Cumbria Constabulary, RSPCA, Environment Agency and other agencies.

Fair Hill, which is owned by Appleby Town Council, was the original camping place where the traditional Fair has been held, but in recent decades several additional campsites on land belonging to local land-owners have been opened up and the fair has grown.

Billy Welch leases Fair Hill from Appleby Town Council for two weeks over the weekend of the fair, following in the footsteps of his father who was the previous lease-holder. Billy Welch is responsible for getting Fair Hill ready – and for cleaning it up after the fair has ended.

“In 1911 Lord Lowther gave Fair Hill to Appleby Town Council common land and to be used by Gypsies for their traditional fair,” explained Billy Welch. “But the council shut Fair Hill and yet our ancestors still came and parked on the roads and lanes and held their fair. That went on for about 60 years before the council finally gave in and opened up Fair Hill again. I remember it as a young lad before Fair Hill was re-opened. Our trailers and wagons and vehicles would spread for two or three miles along the roads. If they suddenly shut all the private campsites run by the local land-owners and tried to ticket Fair Hill, the vehicles would spread for 20-30 miles. The fair wouldn’t fit on Fair Hill anymore.”

Whilst hoping to work with local Appleby residents to take the fair forward in a way that “addresses some genuine and understandable concerns,” Billy Welch is sceptical about any drastic solutions that would attempt to reduce the numbers of people coming to the Fair in the short term.

“It’s taken 24 years for the fair to become this popular – it could take 24 years to get it back to where it was,” said Billy Welch. “It would have to be done gradually. In the meantime lets work together to improve the experience of the fair for both local people and my people.”

Mike Doherty/TT News

(Lead photograph: Billy Welch on Fair Hill, Appleby 2022 © Bela Varadi )

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Inside western europe's biggest annual gathering of gypsies and travelers.

All photos by Amelia Troubridge.

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