The Road To Appleby Horse Fair 2011 - Wingate Crew

Appleby Fair is an annual gathering of travellers & gypsies from around the UK & Ireland, it is the largest such event in the World. Of the many thousands of travellers that attend "The Wingate Crew" are great ambassadors of horse dealers & traders from County Durham, Northern England.

This film is only a short insight of my two visits to their world, we hadn't ever met before but everyone was friendly & amicable as I filmed there journey & life, with the minimum of intrusion, I even helped yoking up a couple of the horse's, when the lads were short of helping hands.

They had camped for the evening at Canney Hill / New Coundon roundabout in County Durham & had utilised a nearby playing field, as grazing for the twenty four horses with them. In the film we see them run the gauntlet of traffic to get to the grazing. Next morning by the time that I had arrived at 7.30am a couple of bow tops had already departed for the next camp site, but I still manage to capture some of the friendly rivalry between the travellers.

One thing that surprised me was just how organised everyone was when the time came to move camp, from shunting the caravans to the next camp site, bringing the horses in, to start yoking up, there was even a couple of blacksmith amongst the men and we see one cold shoeing a horse.

But most of all these people loved their horses and the baby, and young boys instantly became men when they knew that it was time to get moving once again.

The wagon train footage is impressive at the end of the film I hope that you enjoy the film as much as I have enjoyed making it!

By the middle of June these people, will be back home living in their houses and looking forward to next years, journey & holiday to Appleby Horse Fair.

This was the largest group of bow top that I have seen in this area for many years, it must be at least thirty years ago that I saw such a show.

Notes:

2.5 hrs footage taken over five hours, on two visits.

Camera: Panasonic TM10

Editor: Sony Vegas Production Suite 10 HD - 25 hours of editing.

Music: By Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com) - Licensed under Creative Commons

1. Celtic Impulse.

2. Skye Cuillin.

3. Errigal

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