Appleby New Fair: Investigating Local Attitudes Towards a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) Heritage Tradition in the Context of Legislative Change

ABSTRACT

Appleby New Fair has been a significant event in the Gyspy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) calendar for over 100 years. Because of the Fair, the town of Appleby in Cumbria (England) has become a “mecca”, ‘sacred’ to GRT communities. Yet new legislation has put the Fair’s future in doubt, making it illegal to ‘reside or intend to reside on land without the permission of the owner or occupier’. This legislation therefore threatens both an event and a way of life. This paper focuses on the Appleby New Fair, but not from the perspective of the GRT communities. Rather, this study is focused on local perceptions of the Fair and specifically therefore those ‘owners and occupiers’ in whose hands the future of the Fair will likely rest. The paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey conducted amongst local residents in 2021, concluding that the Fair does not have local support. In reaching this conclusion, the survey revealed significant information around perceptions of authenticity and heritage, touching also on identity and tradition, thus extending the implications of this study far beyond Appleby.

KEYWORDS:

• festivals
• heritage
• intangible cultural heritage
• legislation
• place
• nostalgia
• identity
• NIMBY
• Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT)
• Appleby New Fair

Introduction

It is estimated that between 120,000 to 300,000 members of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities are currently living in England and Wales. These communities are diverse in their social histories, identities and traditions. Appleby New Fair (also known as the Appleby Horse Fair) is an annual gathering of people from some of these GRT communities in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland in the north-west of England. Every year, usually the first Thursday in June, thousands of attendees arrive in the town, and spend the weekend celebrating their cultures and identities. They wash their horses in the river, buy and sell goods through market stalls, and socialise in the local pubs. Then, by the following Tuesday, the town returns to normal until the following year.

As one of the largest gatherings of GRT communities in Europe, the Appleby New Fair is possibly unique. It is not an organised event, but the Fair is nevertheless steeped in tradition and with a history stretching back over 200 years. While Appleby’s mediaeval ‘borough’ fair was an entirely separate event, which occurred annually on Whitsuntide and ended in 1885, the so-called ‘New’ Fair is reputed to have begun around 1775, initially on unenclosed land outside the borough boundary, and involved the trading of stock by horse traders and sheep and cattle drovers. By the 1900s this ‘New’ Fair had evolved into the fair of today with GRT people parading their horses to the town centre to wash them in the River Eden, a practice said to grant them strength and good luck. Horses are traded between members of the travelling community and local farmers, and put through their paces along the town’s Flashing Lane. As such, the New Fair holds cultural significance for GRT communities, being cited as a ‘rare opportunity to be yourself and feel safe in the company of others.’¹ The New Fair has never been an organised event and relies not on a charter for its existence but on the legal concepts of easement by prescription² and custom.³

In 2020, the New Fair was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic and in 2021 it was pushed back from its traditional date to August due to the same risks. This meant that the New Fair in 2021 had a special intensity. While stories of crime and anti-social behaviour are common at the Fair, the 2021 event saw the most arrests for seven years. This may be due in part to the fact that there was a significant presence of campaigners under the organisation Drive to Survive, raising awareness of the UK Conservative Government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This Bill has since been passed by the Houses of Parliament (on 26 April 2022), and was granted Royal Assent on 28 April 2022. The Bill has therefore now become an Act and although this Act makes no specific reference to ethnicity or race, it has been criticised for directly targeting GRT communities by threatening their traditional way of life.

To better understand this threat requires appreciation of both the significance of the Appleby New Fair for GRT communities, and the attitudes of local residents, given that they have been present for as long as there has been a New Fair in Appleby. Appleby residents’ views have never before been explored in depth and these are now crucial given that GRT communities will likely require ‘the permission of landowners and occupiers’ (all of course local residents) to reside at Appleby if they are to avoid prosecution. The Fair is clearly a significant part of GRT communities’ heritage. This paper aims to explore whether the residents of Appleby view the New Fair as also being a part of their heritage and whether they consider it to be an important tradition that should be maintained.

Legislative Context

To summarise, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (hereafter PCSCA, or ‘the Act’) is a new set of laws that mainly enable the police to better manage ‘highly disruptive’ and ‘dangerous’ protests.⁴ To do so, the police now have more power, including the ability to place restrictions upon protests, such as start times and noise limits. The Act has been widely acknowledged to be in response to the high-profile Black Lives Matter movement and Extinction Rebellion protests of 2020.⁵ Critical to this paper, however, is the fact the PCSCA will make trespass a criminal offence when it has previously been a civil offence.⁶

The Act has been highly controversial. Human rights charity Liberty has criticised the Act as ‘drastically limiting the right to protest’⁷ and the Good Law Project states that the Act threatens to ‘neuter protests in ways that would render them ineffective.’⁸ Indeed, the Act has been called ‘deeply authoritarian’ by Amnesty International, and there are concerns that, through this Act, the government aims to ‘tactically silence’ those who are at odds with their ideology.⁹ Furthermore, the Act has been said to disproportionally affect GRT communities, who are among the most persecuted and marginalised groups in the UK. According to Liberty, criminalising unauthorised encampments is ‘a direct attack on the way of life’ of GRT communities.¹⁰ The provision that makes trespass a criminal offence can be applied to people who are residing on land ‘in or with a vehicle’, and this offence is supported by new powers to enable the police to ‘seize any relevant property,’ thus rendering GRT homeless.¹¹ Billy Welch, the Shera Rom or ‘Head Gypsy’, wrote a letter to Priti Patel, the (then) UK Government’s Home Secretary, stating:

… this provision will in effect make criminals of law-abiding Gypsies and Travellers as well as homeless people and “wild-campers” who live in vans, because the offence is in refusing to leave, which requires no evidence of antisocial behaviour, but merely suspicion that it is likely.¹²

Where, then, does that leave Appleby New Fair? The main problem is that the PCSCA makes it more difficult for GRT to travel and stop safely without police interference. Fair Hill, the main site where the GRT park their caravans, is owned by Appleby Town Council, sublet to local farmers, and the attendees pay for pitches. Here, the sustainability of the Fair is therefore in the hands of those owners and occupiers. However, with fewer legal stopping places available en route, even making the journey to Appleby now risks GRT people losing their homes.¹³ This Act and its provisions therefore provide the legal framework within which the heritage future of an event central to GRT identity and lifestyle will likely be determined.

Heritage Research and GRT Communities

Much of the recent academic focus on travelling communities concerns policy research centred specifically around wellbeing. This is understandable given that, according to a House of Commons Committee (2019) report, GRT people have the worst outcomes of any ethnic group across a huge range of areas, including education, health, employment, criminal justice and hate crime.¹⁴ Furthermore, according to Cemlyn et al. (2009), GRT communities in Britain experience wide-ranging inequalities, and their life expectancy is much shorter than that of the wider population.¹⁵

The wider literature on GRT communities is a diverse body of thought drawn from across disciplines including, notably, anthropology, history, geography and sociology.¹⁶ Yet GRT communities are under-represented in research concerning race and ethnicity¹⁷ and heritage.¹⁸ According to Bánffy, ‘hardly any Gypsy heritage is known’ despite their long history.¹⁹ Furthermore, while written sources on Roma are often biased and mainly restricted to their language and music, their material culture has remained largely uninvestigated.²⁰ As Lucassen et al. have said: ‘the student of European history who searches for Gypsies will find them only in footnotes’.²¹

In the United Kingdom, heritage has tended to focus on that which is tangible: buildings, monuments, and objects,²² aligning with a so-called Authorised Heritage Discourse.²³ But the need to promote and protect intangible heritage is gaining recognition at international level.²⁴ ‘Festive events’, for example, were identified by UNESCO in 2003 as one component of intangible cultural heritage, being recognised as complex events that have significant economic, cultural, social and political impacts on their host communities.²⁵ Del Barrio et al.²⁶ characterise them as ‘a distinctive example of immaterial cultural legacy’ while Perry et al. refer to their being inextricably related to physical locations and types of tangible history.²⁷

In terms of cultural heritage and archaeology, studies of such fairs and festivals are a comparatively recent phenomenon. Yet with their dynamic and synergetic relationship to specific locations and cultural sites, festivals can claim an important place in Europe’s cultural ecology. Most archaeological attention to festivals and other comparable ephemeral events has focused on those that occurred in the distant past. For instance, archaeological interpretation of ancient feasting has shown how temporary gatherings were important arenas for constructing social relations and social complexity, establishing social identities and memories.²⁸ It is no surprise that mass gatherings during the Neolithic period at Stonehenge, involving people who had travelled to the site in Wiltshire from across the UK, including from Orkney in the far north, has been compared to the contemporary Glastonbury Festival, in terms both of relative scale and cultural significance.²⁹

Recent festivals and gatherings have also now been the subject of attention by archaeologists. Schofield’s investigation of the 1970 music festival on the Isle of Wight (off the coast of southern England) drew on memories of this iconic event and the material signatures of the purpose-built landscape that remain today, emphasising the cultural benefits of engaging with these sites’ as cultural heritage.³⁰ White’s more recent analysis of the Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert (Nevada, US) examined its materiality alongside conducting participant observation.³¹ As the world’s largest ‘leave no trace’ event, White calls for reconsideration of how archaeological analysis works in relation to temporary sites.³² Through their study of Törnävänsaari, a rock music festival in Finland, Äikäs et al. show that people’s memories of the festival did not always align with its material remains, giving material culture value in analysing such fairs and festivals.³³ Brayshaw and Mulville’s ongoing study of contemporary UK festivals offers an approach to create a clearer understanding of festival culture through their monumentality and landscape context but also through their connection and relationship to people and histories.³⁴ There are significant parallels also between these projects and Schofield’s work on the occupation of peace or protest camps in the Nevada Desert and at Greenham Common in the UK, the latter aligning in various ways with the emerging environmental protest movement in the 1980s and ‘hippy convoys’ that newspaper reports described as clogging up roads around the time of the summer solstice, as their ‘new age travellers’, attempted to reach Stonehenge, a place they described as their spiritual home.³⁵

Within the GRT community specifically, it is widely accepted that fairs for the sale of animals play a crucial role in cultural life. According to Holloway, these animal fairs were not associated with the carnivalesque processions that turned the world upside down in a Bakhtinian sense.³⁶ But as Stallybrass and White argue, such events still had the potential to turn the rural world inside out, as ‘even the smallest fair juxtaposed both people and objects which were normally kept separate and thus provided a taste of life beyond the narrow horizon of the town or village’.³⁷ Mayall’s history of Gypsy-Travellers in the nineteenth century shows that fairs were important in structuring the timing and direction of the travelling community’s mobility, saying they acted as a ‘social forum’.³⁸ Not only serving an economic function, they also drew travellers from around the country and became a meeting place for families and friends.³⁹ This continues to be the case today, for while the sale of horses is deemed less important, Okely demonstrates that these horse fairs remain an important part of the GRT calendar.⁴⁰

The majority of historic fairs exist now as historic records, as locations noted in historic archives, or as events that have declined sharply in size. Appleby New Fair is an exception. Yet despite the importance of the event to GRT communities, very little academic research has been undertaken, the Fair typically receiving only passing mention in broader ethnographic works. Holloway’s research therefore holds particular merit, comprising three papers on Appleby New Fair, examining the Fair from a human geographical perspective in the period 1869–1969.⁴¹ Holloway’s 2003 paper explores the construction of and meanings ascribed to Gypsy-Traveller identity, using Appleby New Fair as a case study. She uses evidence from the local newspaper The Cumberland and Westmorland Herald to consider how Appleby New Fair and its GRT participants were represented specifically in the years 1869–1934.⁴² Holloway’s 2004 paper follows a similar vein, this time looking at perceptions in the years 1945–1969. Importantly, she recognises limitations in her dataset, noting that no records exist of how the local population read and responded to stories concerning the Fair in their local press in the past, but contends that an analysis of newspaper articles can still provide interesting insights.⁴³ Holloway’s most recent paper (2005) is based upon interviews with the town’s residents and seeks to gain insight into the residents’ perceptions of their ‘whiteness’ using GRT people as a point of comparison. She concludes that the mythological ‘true gypsy’ is still judged as disappearing, being replaced by the ‘hanger on’.⁴⁴

In a more recent study, local historian Andrew Connell used borough records, the minutes of district and county council meetings, school log-books and local newspapers, to provide a detailed history of the Fair. However, this work treads lightly around Gypsy-Traveller identity, focusing instead on historical and administrative rather than anthropological perspectives. This research does not examine the lives, views, values or interactions between GRT and the residents of Appleby and takes very little evidence from GRT sources.⁴⁵ The only other study of the Fair is Crew’s examination of the 2017 event, with its focus on perceptions of traditionalism versus commercialisation.⁴⁶

Appleby New Fair – History, Key Locations and Media Representation

Appleby New Fair is an annual gathering of GRT people in the historic town of Appleby-in-Westmorland, a market town in the Eden Valley, Cumbria in the north-west of England with a population of approximately 3,000 people The event is usually held in the first week of June, starting on Thursday with the height of the festivities being over the weekend. Appleby New Fair is unique in Europe, being the largest annual gathering of GRT, with 10–15,000 attendants and up to 50,000 tourists who come to see the spectacle.⁴⁷ Traditionally, the Fair was for the trading of horses, cattle, and sheep, but over the years it has grown beyond this economic aspect and encompasses a wide range of social and cultural activities. Appleby New Fair is not an organised event and, as such, there is no set programme. The name is now antonymous; since its inception in 1775, the Fair has been called ‘New’ to distinguish it from the mediaeval borough fair previously held in the town, on Whitsunday.⁴⁸

There is some speculation as to when Appleby New Fair was first established. There are suggestions that it had been taking place since 1685, when it is believed that James II granted it a Royal Charter. However, the existence of this charter is disputed, and others have shown that the Fair was actually established in the mid-eighteenth century.⁴⁹ What appears more certain is that the Fair began as a drover’s fair, but with the advent of the railway and the establishment of permanent auction markets for the sale of livestock, it evolved into a fair solely for the sale of horses. While local discourse states that the Fair has always been associated with GRT communities, Connell casts doubt on this, stating that the event was not associated with the GRT until 1900–1910.⁵⁰ Throughout the early twentieth century, the image of the Fair being a ‘Gypsy’ event strengthened. In 1915, the Penrith Observer reported that the Fair had not lost any of its popularity despite the War and reported that ‘nomadic tribes’ were in high attendance.⁵¹ With the advent of the motor vehicle, the sale of horses declined, but the event continued through the post-war period as an important social event for its GRT participants.

The locations, spaces and sites that make up Appleby New Fair are inherently important to the event and are transformed during the festival. The Fair is focused over four main locations: 1) Fair Hill. This is where GRT communities park their caravans and trailers for the duration of the Fair (Figure 1). Also known as Gallows Hill, there is evidence of a fair in some form being held in this location from 1775.⁵² According to Crew, over half of the travelling attendants stay on Fair Hill with the rest on the surrounding privately-owned fields.⁵³ 2) More recently, the Market Field has also become a popular area for trading and catering (Figure 2). Stalls in both fields sell items including glassware, pottery, clothes, and cast-iron cooking pots, with tourists enticed also by the stereotypical fortune tellers and palm readers. 3) Flashing Lane has only been a feature of the New Fair for the past 25 years, yet it represents the important tradition of showing off the horses before sale (Figure 3).⁵⁴ 4) The Sands is a street in Appleby town centre which runs alongside the River Eden (Figure 4). Here GRT communities drive their horses from Fair Hill, down Battlebarrow (Figure 5), and congregate on the riverbank to wash their horses in the River Eden (Figure 6), bringing good luck.

Figure 1. Traditional bowtop caravans on Fair Hill. This file is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

Figure 2. Aerial view of Market Field. This file is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

Figure 3. ‘The Flash’ – parading a horse on Flashing Lane. This file is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence.

Figure 4. Horses tethered on The Sands. This image is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

Figure 5. Trotting up Battlebarrow. This file is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence.

Figure 6. Washing horses in the River Eden. This file is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence.

So, what of the modern New Fair? Connell calls the Fair a ‘media event’, and through keyword searches online it is clear what he means.⁵⁵ The Fair features heavily in both local and national news each year, and the language used in such reports is often inflammatory, depicting it as a hostile take-over of the town. For instance, on 5 June 2021, The Sun newspaper ran the headline, ‘Travellers descend on Cumbria for famous Appleby Horse Fair’.⁵⁶ On 10 June 2019, the same tabloid newspaper ran the headline, ‘Big fat Gypsy mess – Kids play in filthy aftermath of Appleby Horse Fair as travellers leave fields strewn with rubbish’.⁵⁷ And on 26 May 2019, broadsheet newspaper The Times ran the headline: ‘Hold your horses: Appleby divided over “lawless” gypsy livestock fair’.⁵⁸ As Okely notes, this does not necessarily provide an unbiased or accurate depiction of residents’ views; when it comes to reports on GRT, she states that the crisis in newspaper sales means there is an incentive to create alarmist headlines to enhance visibility and increase circulation.⁵⁹

Equally, this kind of language is not unique to Appleby New Fair and can be seen in representations of GRT communities more widely. For instance, The Sun’s 2005 national campaign ‘Stamp on the Camps’, warned of a ‘gypsy invasion’. In response, GRT groups reported The Sun to the Police and the Press Complaints Commission, claiming that its campaign against Traveller camps was an incitement to racial hatred.⁶⁰ Prejudgement dominates popular news coverage of GRT communities, and Okely states that ‘centuries’ old stereotypes are recycled with minimum legal protection for the demonised minority’.⁶¹

Methodology

In spite of its documented history and media attention, little research has been done to examine the extent to which the Fair forms part of the town’s cultural heritage, as understood by its residents. To examine this, an online survey was designed using Google Forms and distributed through social media within the local community through the ‘Appleby Cumbria’ Facebook group, with the aim to capture the views of as diverse a range of people as possible. The survey was also distributed via a local news website, Cumbria Crack, to ensure it was accessible to people who didn’t use social media platforms.⁶² Most of the questions in the survey were answered using the five-point Likert scale.⁶³ The benefits of designing the survey in this way were twofold. Firstly, on behalf of the respondents, the questions would be easier to answer, as they only needed to decide to what extent they agree with a given statement rather than put their own opinion into words. Secondly, on behalf of the researcher, it would provide data that were easy to analyse, creating results that reduced ambiguity.

That said, a final question was added to the survey, where respondents were invited to share their opinions of the Fair, and to answer the open question: ‘To what extent do you regard Appleby New Fair as part of the town’s cultural heritage?’ By placing this question at the end of the survey and marking it as optional, there was a risk that fewer people would want to provide their opinions. However, this question gave the opportunity for those with a more nuanced opinion to justify their answers, and aimed to mitigate against the risk that the Likert scale can only account for opinions on a linear basis.

The goal was to achieve a circa 5% sample size of 100–150 people for Appleby, a town of around 3,000 residents. This would allow confidence that the survey results were representative of the town’s population.⁶⁴ The final sample size was in fact 317 (~10% of the population) and included people who lived in Appleby, people who used to live in Appleby, and people who live within five miles of Appleby. Of the final respondents, 60% of residents chose to answer the final question generating 190 instances of qualitative data. For the purposes of this publication, all responses were given a random number to distinguish them. Quotes are therefore attributed with a P#, the P standing for Participant. Where the participant indicated that they consent to be identified by age, gender, and occupation, this information has also been included, although no significant trends were revealed in the data relative to these categories. The survey was granted ethics clearance through the University of York’s ethics procedures.

Survey Results

Survey Responses

Connell has described the local population as being ‘far from unanimous’ in viewing the Fair negatively, and in terms of a ‘felicific calculus’, he is sure with ‘unmeasurable assertion that … Appleby Fair would emerge in credit’.⁶⁵ However, the results of this survey suggest otherwise with views of the Fair being generally unfavourable. Questions 2 and 3 were used as a baseline, asking residents whether the New Fair positively or negatively impacted their lives. These questions found that 41% (n = 131) of people strongly disagreed that the Fair positively impacted their lives, versus only 6% (n = 20) who strongly agreed that it did.

If we take feelings about future preservation (or retention) as a way to identify the value of the Fair as a heritage event or tradition, Appleby residents did not feel that the New Fair should continue in Appleby. Questions 13 and 14 found that most people would be happy if the New Fair was banned. Of these, some 65% (n = 208) of participants indicated that they either disagreed or strongly disagreed that the New Fair should continue to happen every year. Also, some 67% (n = 213) said that they would agree or strongly agree that they would be happy to see the Fair abolished.

To assess whether the residents viewed the New Fair as part of their cultural heritage, survey questions were devised using English Heritage’s Conservation Principles, Policies and Guidance⁶⁶ and the four values they identify and define: evidential, historical, aesthetic, and communal. This framework was chosen to give nuance to any responses around heritage value and meaning. While these four values were designed originally to help identify and evaluate tangible heritage, they nevertheless present a framework that is useful for thinking about perceptions of the New Fair as an event. When the residents of Appleby judged the New Fair against these values, the results again suggested that they did not identify it as part of their heritage.

Referring to historical and evidential values, the results proved inconclusive on the question of whether the New Fair was an important part of the town’s history, despite the fact that Appleby is often recognised specifically by and for this event. Question 4 asked participants whether they felt that they were aware of the history of the New Fair, and most indicated that they were, with 57% (n = 181) agreeing, and 34% (n = 103) strongly agreeing. However, when asked whether they felt that the New Fair was an ‘important part’ of the town’s history, the results were far less decisive. No clear answer to this question emerged, with 40% (n = 127) of participants agreeing or strongly agreeing, and 43% (n = 139) disagreeing or strongly disagreeing.

Questions 8 and 9 referred to the New Fair’s aesthetic value as defined by English Heritage. For example, one of the main reasons for tourists visiting the New Fair is the spectacle of seeing horses being washed in the river. Yet, amongst the residents, most did not agree that the aesthetic value of the fair was significant. In total, 40% (n = 125) said that they strongly disagreed that the New Fair was an exciting spectacle worth seeing, versus only 10% (n = 32) who strongly agreed. A similar response was made to the other related question with 45% (n = 151) of participants strongly disagreeing that the New Fair positively impacts the town’s image, with only 7% (n = 23) strongly agreeing.

In terms of communal value, the New Fair acts as a stage on which cultures come together: primarily the GRT communities on the one hand and predominantly white rural English residents on the other. However, the results from Questions 11 and 12 were mixed. Question 11 asked whether the residents thought that the New Fair was an important part of GRT culture. Whilst the majority of people strongly agreed or agreed, a surprising number of people answered that they felt neutrally, with 25% (n = 79) of responses. However, for Question 12, most people disagreed that the New Fair helped them to better understand GRT culture. In total, 27% (n = 86) of the participants strongly disagreed, and 22% (n = 71) disagreed.

The survey also provided interesting results regarding the residents’ views of GRT identity. Question 16 asked whether the residents of Appleby perceived a difference between the ‘traditional’ GRT who had attended the Fair in the past, and the travelling community that attends the Fair today. The results of this question relate directly to Holloway’s 2005 paper on the racialisation of GRT communities by white rural residents. Holloway found that there were echoes of this view in interviews with Appleby residents, and that the divide between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ gypsies was something that the local community truly believed.⁶⁷ This question confirmed that impression, with 85% (n = 250) of those who answered the question agreeing that there is a difference between ‘traditional’ GRT attendees and the travelling community who visit the Fair today.

The final question of the survey was an optional question, asking: ‘To what extent do you regard Appleby New Fair as part of the town’s heritage?’ What emerged from this question was confirmation that views of the Fair amongst Appleby residents were highly mixed. On the one hand are participants decrying the lawlessness and the Fair Hill’s unhygienic state during and after the event, while on the other are those who praise the Fair for its history and traditions. In order to better interpret these results, the responses were broadly examined through basic language analysis to determine whether the views expressed were leaning positive or negative. The analysis confirmed the impression given in the Likert-scale component of the survey, that responses were broadly negative. In all, 26% (n = 51) of responses to this final question expressed positive views while 64% (n = 123) expressed negative views. In between, 8% (n = 16) of residents expressed neutral or inconclusive views. These views are described in the following section.

Thematic Overview

Six themes were selected as being worth closer examination through the views expressed in the final open question of the survey. These themes are: Nostalgia and Memory; ‘Hangers on’ and Authenticity; Lawlessness; ‘Other’ Heritage and the Authorised Heritage Discourse; NIMBYism; and Reputation and Identity. These were selected on the basis of their recurrence and will now be considered in turn.

Nostalgia and Memory

One of the main themes identified in the responses to Question 18 was the idea that Appleby New Fair is not how it used to be. Respondents mostly remember the Fair fondly, but state that it has now changed beyond recognition.

“Look forward to it every year but has changed greatly.” – P8, female, lives in Appleby.

“Used to be but it’s changed beyond recognition” – P537, lives in Appleby.

“I think the fair as it was originally intended is very much a part of the town’s cultural heritage, but I also feel that it has lost a lot of its own cultural intent.” – P32, lives within 5 miles of Appleby.

This theme perhaps aligns more with ‘nostalgia’ than with ‘memory’, for nostalgia is essentially a positive orientation to the past or, as Goulding notes, a ‘bittersweet longing for an idealised past which no longer exists’.⁶⁸ In nostalgia there is an inherent yearning for the past. It has been noted that we do not need to have lived in the past to feel nostalgic for it.⁶⁹

One participant highlighted that she felt new technology has made the Fair redundant, causing it to lose its original significance. She notes particularly the ‘high-tech caravans that some GRT people use rather than the traditional ‘bow tops’⁷⁰:

“ … I believe that what the fair stands for today is so far removed from what it would have been originally that, the question of it being relevant to Appleby’s heritage is somewhat irrelevant. … They would travel to meet one another once a year, when there was no phones, no internet or technology, no high tech caravans. The implications of this new technology makes a mockery of what the fair was originally about.” – P413, female, used to live in Appleby.

Another participant noted that the cultural heritage of the Fair has been diminished as it no longer follows the traditional calendar of events.

“ … the Fair no longer is about tradition. Many of the traditions that happened on specific days no longer happen … The tradition was to come on Thursday and leave Thursday, now it’s a weekend festival with massive clean up where the locals [foot] the bill. Tradition used to be that Travellers attended the trot at Holme Farm on the Tuesday and raced horses up and down the ‘Flashing Lane’ on Wednesday to be sold, however they’ve all left by then.” – P112, lives in Appleby.

The concept of nostalgia is linked closely to memory, and as Sather-Wagstaff notes, heritage cannot exist without individual and collective memory; they have a symbiotic and dynamic relationship with each other.⁷¹ Smith expands on this, stating that ‘there is no one defining action or moment of heritage, but rather a range of activities that include remembering, commemoration, communicating, passing on knowledge and memories’.⁷²

The participants here accept that the New Fair is a part of the memory of the town, but they bemoan that it is not how they remember it being in the past. They seem to suggest that if the New Fair was performed in a way that they remember, then it could become a part of the town’s heritage. As it is, whether because of new technology or because it no longer follows the traditional calendar of events, the Fair has changed beyond their recognition. Simply, they remember the New Fair of the past with nostalgia, yet (perhaps confusingly) they do not recognise today’s annual gathering as part of the town’s heritage.

‘Hangers On’ and Authenticity

Tied to the idea of Nostalgia for the New Fair of the past is the idea that the attendees are also not who they used to be. ‘Hangers on’ is a phrase that local residents have used to describe those who they don’t believe have GRT heritage. It is a phrase that Holloway also used in her research.⁷³ This is a common narrative, and the concept of ‘traditional’ GRT is explored in the answers in Question 16, which asks: ‘Do you perceive a difference between traditional Gypsy-Traveller Roma and the travelling community that attends the New Fair today?’ In total, 85% of participants (n = 250) agreed that there was a difference. This result is also reflected in the longer responses that some residents provided.

“ … But it has changed since I was young and is increasingly dominated by a pretty lawless bunch of hangers-on who are not Gypsies.” – P185, female, 55-64, retired, used to live in Appleby.

“ … However a large percentage of the towns visitors are simply there for a good time and have nothing to do with gypsies.” – P404, lives in Appleby.

“The traditional New Fair has disintegrated into a rowdy, dirty event with many of the traditional families themselves no longer happy to stay in Appleby. 50 years ago it was perhaps part of Appleby’s cultural heritage but the current attenders have spoiled this.” – P407, lives in Appleby.

The concept of the ‘fake’ gypsy is a common narrative used when talking about GRT communities. This is also a powerful narrative that is difficult to escape, particularly for those residents who look back at the New Fair of the past and can perceive a difference with today’s event.

Here we can see that heritage is not only linked to the events of the past, but also to the participants. If the people performing heritage are not deemed somehow ‘valid’, then it appears the performance becomes inherently less valuable. Authenticity is regarded as important here, and as the GRT communities’ authenticity is challenged, so is the heritage of the event with which they associate. The authenticity of historic or cultural sites has always been a key criterion, for instance for their inclusion into the World Heritage List.⁷⁴ Even so, authenticity can be regarded as one of the most difficult concepts in heritage conservation. The concept has been disputed by academics, who have problematised authenticity as a quality possessed only by ‘original’ artefacts, while recognising that people construct their ideas of the authentic on their own judgements of what is real and what is fake.⁷⁵ This distinction between ‘original’ and ‘counterfeit’ is further blurred when it comes to heritage sites and historical elements.⁷⁶ Authenticity is now viewed as a relation between the experiences, places and meanings people attribute to their own life experiences.⁷⁷

It has been stated that intangible heritage requires traditional cultural holders to give it life.⁷⁸ However, problems arise when trying to define the traditional culture holders in the present day. If we accept that authenticity is in the eye of the beholder, we can certainly see that the Appleby residents do not regard GRT attendees as meeting these expectations. The residents of Appleby do not perceive the travelling communities that attend the New Fair today as the traditional cultural holders, thus diminishing their perceptions of the Fair’s authenticity as a heritage event.

Lawlessness

When asked whether they viewed the New Fair as part of the town’s heritage, many disagreed and cited the perceived lawlessness of the GRT community as to their reason why not. Indeed, this was the most common theme found in the survey responses. Some noted specific crimes, the most common being disorderly behaviour. There were even mentions of violence towards the resident community.

“I don’t believe getting drunk, shouting, spitting, littering, fighting is part of Appleby culture at all.” – P570, male, 55-64, retired manager, lives within 5 miles of Appleby.

“ … I have been threatened twice so feel I need to leave the area for the fair or lock myself away with my family. It should not be like that! … ” – P211, lives within 5 miles of Appleby

“It’s a significant part, but less relevant to many residents than the mess, filth, crime and vandalism that invariably accompanies a proportion of the travellers. … It’s hard to enthuse about culture when drunks are urinating in your garden.” – P506, lives in Appleby.

One of the common phrases used was ‘respect’, and the perceived lack of respect towards the town and its residents.

“ … But the total lack of respect of a beautiful area, its local inhabitants, leaving rubbish, and cost to cover, police, ambulance, RSPCA, parish, AND local council, which local people have to fund, in yearly taxes, we refer to living here as 50 weeks of heaven and 2 weeks of hell. It’s become an excuse for destruction and a cover for criminal activity.” – P402, lives within 5 miles of Appleby.

“It’s a pain in the backside! Get rid of it completely. They have no respect for the town or its people.” – P236, 18-25, Male, Highways maintenance operative, lives within 5 miles of Appleby.

It appears that the residents of the town feel that the New Fair cannot be part of their cultural heritage when the attendees do not ‘respect’ the town, the residents, and its environs. This idea is further explored in the responses that bring up the rubbish and litter that attendees leave behind.

Other Heritage and the AHD

Those who disagreed that the New Fair was part of the town’s cultural heritage sometimes gave examples of other things that they held in higher regard.

“Maybe in the past but no longer. Would like the link to the Lady Anne Clifford family⁷⁹ to take precedence over the fair.” – P304, lives in Appleby.

“It isn’t! Lady Anne Clifford is part of our cultural heritage! Gypsies/travellers are NOT!” – P174, female, 35-44, lives in Appleby.

“As someone who has lived in Appleby for all their life, I would argue that the horse fair is detrimental to the rich history of Appleby and it’s surrounds. There is much more to Appleby than the new fair, including such historical gems as the Norman castle and old architecture in the town, however for the sake of the fair and the traveller agenda this is overlooked - negatively impacting the town’s overall image and ability to draw in a less obnoxious and more culturally appreciative crowd for Appleby and its many local businesses.” – P504, female, 18-24, lives in Appleby.

Here, Smith’s Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) is clearly in evidence.⁸⁰ As defined by the AHD, heritage is any material object, place or landscape that is aesthetically pleasing and cannot be replaced. According to the argument around AHD, these things are for the benefit of future generations and, due to their fragility, current generations must care for, protect, and venerate them. The AHD assumes heritage is something that is ‘found’ with intrinsic value which will speak to both present and future generations in order to ensure they understand their place in the world. A problem with this AHD is therefore that it is highly exclusionary; cultural heritage that is non-elite, non-Western, non-archaeological or that otherwise contradicts universalising narratives of heritage, is often ignored or dismissed. The AHD is usually applied to tangible heritage, but here we can see it working against the intangible heritage of New Fair.

NIMBYism

NIMBYism – ‘Not in My Back Yard’ – is a form of opposition that arises when people object to something located in an area where the person lives because it is unpleasant or hazardous, especially when they do not object to similar developments elsewhere.⁸¹ The concept often applies in heritage protection to protect sites from developments. This concept can be found in the Appleby residents’ responses, who say that they do not object to the New Fair happening, but would rather it didn’t happen in Appleby.

“Although of historical relevance, the fair should be shifted away from the town centre to a country location as it affects too many businesses and residences in the town, causing excessive cost and inconvenience to many.” – P491, female, lives within 5 miles of Appleby.

“I feel that it brings some diversity to an otherwise white Conservative stereotypical Cumbrian town. However, the fair is now too big for the town and should NOT be paid for by locals in terms of council tax. It should be a ticketed event in the interests of keeping the public, visitors and the Gypsy-Traveller Roma community safe.” – P534, female, 25-34, used to live in Appleby but has since moved away.

… The New Fair has outgrown Appleby. The number of people that come is too large for the infrastructure of Appleby to cope with … - P285, Business owner, Director, lives in Appleby.

In this study, participants portray themselves as a voice of reason by presenting the opposite argument; they agree that the Fair has ‘historical relevance’ and ‘brings … diversity to an otherwise white Conservative stereotypical Cumbrian town.’ Yet they conclude that the New Fair cannot continue to happen in the town centre, either because of the excessive cost or because the town’s infrastructure cannot ‘cope’.

The concept of moving Appleby New Fair to a new location is one that may provide a solution for those residents who would wish it gone: the residents will no longer have to put up with the disruption, and the GRT communities (residents argue) will still have a place to meet and participate in a vital cultural event. However, as we have seen, Perry et al. note that a key characteristic of festivals is that they are intimately linked to physical places and tangible forms of history.⁸² Furthermore, Appleby itself has been identified as being particularly important to GRT cultural heritage. Billy Welch, the Shera Rom or Head Gypsy, has called Appleby their ‘Mecca’ and identified the area as ‘sacred’ to GRT communities.⁸³ When asked how long Appleby Fair will continue, he stated that: ‘As long as there is a planet earth, Appleby Fair will exist’.⁸⁴ The implication of this is that it will also exist in Appleby.

Questions 13 and 14 in the survey spoke of abolishing the Fair or allowing it to continue. Appleby New Fair is not an organised event. The Fair is a gathering of people with a broadly common purpose. Essentially, the process is not dissimilar to tourists going to nearby Blackpool Pleasure Beach, except for the fact that New Fair lasts only a few days and has a particular ethnic and cultural association. It is highly likely that if the Council and its Multi-Agency Strategic Co-ordinating Group (MASCG) decided that they were no longer going to sublet Fair Hill to the travelling community, or arrange toilet facilities and street cleaning, GRT communities would still come to Appleby.

Reputation and Identity

It has long been observed that heritage holds an ‘identity-conferring status’.⁸⁵ It is therefore a logical assumption that people want to be proud of their heritage, as it forms part of their sense of being. Survey respondents frequently mention the fact that Appleby is known for the horse fair with the implication that it is also therefore a part of the town’s heritage.

“Appleby is only really recognised outside of itself by the fair … ” - P109, Female, 35-44, Therapist, lives in Appleby.

“Having moved away from Appleby in my 20s, I can say that usually when I say where I am from people say, ‘oh yes, the horse fair’.” – P185, female, 55-64, Retired, used to live in Appleby.

“Has put Appleby on the map all over the world.” – P292, female, 55-64, lives in Appleby.

The reputation that the Fair brings to the town is not always viewed in a positive light, however.

“It gives the town a negative image” – P563, male, 55-64, lives within 5 miles of Appleby.

“To make us look like a filthy lawless place” – P180, female, 35-44, Production analyst, lives in Appleby.

One participant seemed to use ‘heritage’ and ‘reputation’ interchangeably. When asked whether they felt that the New Fair was part of the heritage of the town, they answered in terms of whether the New Fair should be held in high regard in terms of the town’s reputation:

“If you want Appleby to be known for abuse of animals at a fair which it chooses to protect then I think you should have a rethink about what is important to the town’s reputation” – P376, lives within 5 miles of Appleby

Conclusions

Appleby residents’ perceptions of the New Fair have rarely been explored and never in such depth. This current study has prompted consideration of why local people might not consider events such as the New Fair to be a part of their heritage, and the reasons why. On the one hand, residents feel that since the New Fair and the people attending it are not as they remember or expect them to be, then it no longer holds the significance that it once did. This idea invites us to think about the importance of authenticity and memory when it comes to defining cultural heritage. In order to be valued by the local community, it would seem, heritage needs to have elements of authenticity and be familiar to those who remember how it once was as opposed to something that is fluid, transitioning over time. Appleby residents seem to prioritise only those heritage assets in their town that fit an Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD), valuing the castle, churches, the surrounding countryside and those elements of history validated by the nobility and the elite. Some recognise the New Fair as an important event, but would rather it did not happen in their proverbial back yard. Furthermore, this study raises the important question of identity in terms of heritage, with residents rejecting the New Fair as part of their heritage because it did not create a positive image for ‘their’ town.

This study comes at a critical time for GRT communities. With the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act granted Royal Assent, GRT lifeways are at risk. Part 4 of the Act introduces measures to create a new offence of trespass by ‘residing on land without consent or with a vehicle’. It even covers those people who are found to be ‘intending’ to reside and gives the police power to confiscate vehicles (UK Parliament 2019). For GRT communities, this is not merely an inconvenience; these vehicles are their homes. This Act therefore threatens a lifestyle and an event that is fundamental to many GRT people’s sense of identity. Even travelling to the New Fair will become more difficult, exacerbating the existing issues of legal stopping places. The future of the New Fair is therefore at serious risk and, from this study, it would appear that many of the local residents would welcome its demise.

On 1 June 1985, several hundred New Age Travellers attempted to reach Stonehenge and hold the 12th annual free festival at the site. They never reached their destination, being intercepted by police eight miles from Stonehenge where the so-called Battle of the Beanfield unfolded.⁸⁶ While the situation at Appleby is very different, there are some points of comparison, such as the increased marginalisation or persecution of people who hold a particular heritage in common or follow less conventional (and typically mobile) lifestyles. This new legislation may not impact those components of heritage that constitute the AHD (the designated sites such as listed buildings and scheduled monuments, for example), but rather aspects of everyday heritage that are vital to local communities. It would appear that, in this case at least, there is real tension between two heritage communities (GRT and residents) who hold a place in common but take very different views on what should happen there. With this new Act, the legislation becomes a very significant determining factor in shaping this and other heritage futures.

Acknowledgments

This project has its origins in a postgraduate dissertation, completed in partial fulfilment of JT’s MA in Cultural Heritage Management at the University of York and supervised through summer 2021 by JS.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Toyn

Jennifer Toyn (prev Whitehead) is a recent MA graduate from the University of York where she studied Cultural Heritage Management. She grew up in Appleby, and thus has first-hand experience of the joys and difficulties of the New Fair, which sparked a particular interest in GRT heritage. Currently she is a history tutor, and volunteers with the Council for British Archaeology.

John Schofield

John Schofield is Professor in Archaeology at the University of York where he researches cultural heritage and archaeologies of the contemporary world. Having previously worked for English Heritage (now Historic England), John has been at York since 2010, running the Archaeology Department’s Masters programme in Cultural Heritage Management. He has visiting adjunct status at Griffith and Flinders universities in Australia and Turku in Finland. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Notes

1. Traveller Times, Memories of Appleby Fair.

2. An easement is a nonpossessory right to use and/or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it.

3. A legal custom is the established pattern of behaviour that can be objectively verified within a particular social setting. A claim can be carried out in defence of ‘what has always been done and accepted by law’.

4. Home Office, Protest Powers.

5. Hansard, Police, Crime, Sentencing.

6. In short, criminal offences are more serious than civil offences (e.g. homicide versus a custody dispute); further, criminal law can be punished by imprisonment and fines whereas civil offences may involve a compensation payment. While the goal of a criminal offence is to bring offenders to justice, civil offences are usually to compensate the injured party. The websites for most legal firms summarise these differences.

7. Liberty, Liberty’s Briefing, 2.

8. Good Law Project, Police, Crime, Sentencing.

9. Amnesty International, Dark Day. Uthayakumar-Cumarasamy et al, “Protest, pandemics”, 90.

10. See note 7 above 7.

11. UK Parliament, Policing, Crime, Sentencing.

12. Tapper, Our Traditions.

13. Levinson and Sparkes, “Orientations to Space”, 714.

14. House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee, Tackling Inequalities.

15. Cemlyn et al., Inequalities experienced.

16. See Sibley, Outsiders in Urban Society; Okley, The Traveller Gypsies; and Mayall Gypsy-travellers in nineteenth-century society.

17. See Hall, “Whose Heritage?” and Naidoo, “All that we are”.

18. But see, Nordin et al., “Living on the margin”.

19. Bánffy, “The Nonexisting Roma Archaeology”, 78.

20. Ibid. But see Nordin et al. for a recent example.

21. Lucassen et al., “Introduction”, 1.

22. e.g. Smith and Waterton.

23. Smith, Uses of Heritage.

24. e.g. Stefano et al., “Touching the Intangible”, 1.

25. Arcodia and Whitford, “Festive Attendance”, 2.

26. Del Barrio et al., p236.

27. Perry et al. “Cultural heritage entanglements”, 608.

28. See, Hayden and Villeneuve, “Century of Feasting Studies”; and Madgwick and Mulville, “Feasting on fore-limbs”.

29. Brayshaw and Mulville, “Festivals: Monument Making”.

30. Schofield, “Popular Culture for Archaeologists”.

31. White, “The Burning Man Festival”; and White, The Archaeology of Burning Man.

32. White, “The Burning Man Festival”, 608.

33. Äikäs et al, “The Sole You Found”, 97.

34. Brayshaw and Mulville, “Festivals: Monument Making”, 141.

35. Beck et al., “Alternative archaeologies”; Reynolds and Schofield, “Silo Walk”; and Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield.

36. Holloway, “Rural roots, rural routes”, 145.

37. Stallybrass and White, Politics and Poetics, 37.

38. Mayall, Gypsy Travellers, 59.

39. Ibid. 60.

40. Okely, The Traveller Gypsies. See also, Steward, The Time of the Gypsies.

41. Holloway, “Outsiders in rural society”; Holloway, “Rural roots, rural routes”; and Holloway, “Articulating Otherness”.

42. Holloway, “Outsiders in rural society”.

43. See note 36 above 147.

44. Holloway, “Articulating Otherness”, 356.

45. Connell, Appleby Gypsy Horse Fair.

46. Crew, “Appleby Fair for All”.

47. Holloway, “Outsiders in Rural Society”, 705.

48. Connell, Appleby Gypsy Horse Fair, 22–3.

49. See, Ibid.; Holloway, “Rural roots, rural routes.”

50. Connell, Appleby Gypsy Horse Fair, 41.

51. Cited in Ibid., 43.

52. Ibid., 22.

53. Crew, “Appleby Fair for All”, 50.

54. Doherty, “Appleby – The Flash”.

55. Connell, Appleby Gypsy Horse Fair, 3.

56. James, “Travellers descend on Cumbria”.

57. Birchall, “Big fat Gypsy mess”.

58. Collins, “Hold your horses”.

59. Okely, “Recycled (mis)representations”, 65.

60. Barkham, “Gypsy groups report the Sun”.

61. See note 59 above 65.

62. Colley, “Have your say in survey”.

63. In which people register their response to a statement, on a scale ranging through “strongly agree to strongly disagree. See Likert, “A technique for the measurement of attitudes”.

64. The 2011 census reported a population of 3,048. Of this population, 2,980 (~98%) reported the UK as their country of birth, and 3,020 (~99%) identified as being white. According to 2020 estimates, the most common age brackets are 50–59 (~15%), 60–69 (~15%) and 70–79 (~14%) (Brinkhoff 2020). The town is part of the Penrith and The Border constituency, which is considered a safe Conservative seat.

65. Connell, Appleby Gypsy Horse Fair, 82–83.

66. English (Heritage 2008).

67. See note 44 above 363.

68. Goulding, “Heritage, nostalgia, “grey” consumer”, 178. See also, Davis, Yearning for Yesterday.

69. Chase and Shaw, “The dimensions of nostalgia”.

70. The traditional horse-drawn gyspy caravan.

71. Sather-Wagstaff, “Heritage and Memory”, 191.

72. Smith, Uses of Heritage, 83.

73. See note 44 above 356.

74. Piazzoni, “What”s Wrong with Fakes”, 244.

75. Holtorf and Schadla Hall, “Age as Artefact”.

76. See note 74 above 244.

77. Knudsen and Waade, Re-invest-ing authenticity.

78. McKercher and Du Cros, Cultural Tourism.

79. A celebrated figure in the history of northern England. See https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/anne-clifford/.

80. See note 23 above.

81. e.g. (Dear 1992).

82. Perry et al., “Cultural heritage entanglements”, 608.

83. Cited in Morgan, “Gypsies travel to Appleby”.

84. Cited in Doherty, “Billy Welch at Appleby”.

85. Urry, “How Societies Remember”, 61.

86. (Worthington 2005).