Appleby Travel Guide

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The best way to enjoy the horse fair is to put on your walking boots and walk! Walk to the Fair Hill where the main camp is and take it all in. Thousands of caravans cover the area. There are cooking pots hung over fires and people and horses everywhere. There is no committee planning the fair, it just happens. Here are some photographs from this year's fair.

Favorite thing: Known all over Britain, this horse fair has a long history. What you see today are tinker horses, Dales ponies and crosses of the two. Sometimes with other breeds. You also find that the buyers and sellers are England's travellers and don't be surprised when you see a pram high on a flat carriage! This is a family outing...All horses go for a wash in the river to look their best and be studied by byers. In Eden Valley just outside Appleby, you find one of England's few places where trotting is a sport along with the more accepted racing. Although don't think it is Scandinavian/American/French trotting. The principles are the same, i.e. a race with a sulky in trot, but the course can be any downtrodden meadow with a possibility to create an oval...Interesting view of England.