Despite the media attention that Appleby Fair now annually attracts, it has never before been the subject of scholarly research. This book marshals and critically examines the available evidence, much of it previously unused, separating assertion from reality and demonstrating how mythology and ‘back history’ have been created. Andrew Connell places Appleby Fair in the context of English fairs, Cumbria’s agricultural economy and national and local politics. Working back from the Fair of the present day, he examines the origins and authenticity of the much-repeated claim that it originated under the aegis of a charter of James II in 1685. He traces its evolution in the course of the nineteenth century from a cattle and sheep drovers’ fair to an occasion dominated by horse sales, and links that development to the increasing identification of Appleby Fair with Gypsy/Travellers, for whom it has acquired a spiritual resonance. He explores the undulating relationship between Appleby Fair, resident communities and the forces of law and order. He disentangles the often ambiguous roles, sometimes contradictory roles played by different local authorities. He analyses periodic attempts to terminate
the Fair and concludes by evaluating the factors that have enabled it to survive and continue to flourish, seemingly against the odds.

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