Appleby Horse Fair

The Appleby Horse Fair calls itself "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. It attracts about 10,000 Gypsies and Travellers and about 30,000 other people. Rather than an organised event with a set programme, it's billed as the biggest traditional Gypsy Fair in Europe, one that's like a big family get together. The horses are washed 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 other. The Gypsy and Traveller attendees include British Romanichal, Irish Travellers, Scottish Gypsy and Traveller groups, Kale (Welsh Romanies), and more.

The fair is held outside the town of Appleby where the Roman Road crosses Long Marton Road, 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. No-one bestowed the New Fair, no-one ever owned it, no-one was ever charged to attend it: it was and remains, a true people's fair.

The legal status of the Fair does not depend on a charter, therefore, but on the legal concept of 'prescriptive right,' that is to say easement by prescription or custom. Praescriptio est titulus ex usu et tempore substanniam capiens ab auctoritate legis. 'Prescription is a title by authority of law, deriving its force from use and time.'

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Wikipedia