Thousands of travellers descend on Appleby Horse Fair with gypsy wagons, trailer trucks and caravans sparking traffic chaos and clogging up roads

Daily Mail​

02-06-2025

Thousands of travellers have descended on a village in Cumbria in their horse-drawn wagons ahead of the annual Appleby Hose Fair.
The six-day event, which takes place every year, sees as many as 10,000 people flock to Appleby, Westmorland, for a fair featuring horse riding, horse trading, traditional music, dance performances and shopping stalls.
The major event will commence on Thursday, June 5 this year, although many have already sparked traffic chaos and clogged up roads in a bid to arrive before thousands of others.
Videos posted by travellers on social media show people flocking to the area with their horses, slowly moving along country lanes.
Meanwhile, other footage shows row upon row of caravans parked along grass verges as travellers race for the good spots ahead of kick off on Thursday.
One person uploaded a video captioned 'not long now Appleby', showing their journey through a stretch of parked-up mobile homes.
Another video titled 'why be sad when it's Appleby this week' shows carriage after carriage running along the road.
A special police task force has so far dealt with offences of burglary, criminal damage, racist abuse, knife crime and faced a torrent of criticism after finding it necessary to handcuff a 10-year-old boy.
The surge in crime around quaint Kirkby Lonsdale in Cumbria is causing anxiety among locals because the fair isn't even due to start until Thursday.
So far local sporting venue, Kirkby Lonsdale Cricket club, has seen its pavilion smashed up, as no windows remain in the wooden structure.
There has been petty vandalism at a campsite and a knife waved during a confrontation between locals and traveller children.
All the complaints have led the police to the makeshift camp in a layby at the town's Devil's Bridge where dozens of caravans have congregated ahead of the fair in Appleby, which is 40 miles away.
A field has been handed over by the town for the gypsies to graze their horses as a safety measure to make sure they aren't causing a hazard tethered on roadside verges.
Locals said they have never seen so many Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) people descend on the town so early. And that may well be down to the successful clampdown in nearby Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria's Eden Valley.
For years the town was the focus of the pre-fair gathering but in the recent past locals have fought back, closing down services and pubs and shutting off the places where travellers would usually set up camp.
One Kirkby Lonsdale local told MailOnline: 'They seem to have descended on us this year and have come earlier and in bigger numbers than we have seen before.
'There have been problems caused by gypsy children in the town centre and closer to the camp they have set up in a layby.'