Photos of Europe's largest gathering of Romani and Traveler people as thousand enjoy the traditional horse-trading fair in a rural English town

People wash horses in the River Eden on the first day of the annual Appleby Horse Fair, in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland, north west England on June 9, 2022.OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

• The small market town of Appleby-in-Westmoreland is welcoming thousands of travelers to the Appleby Fair.
• The fair is a horse-trading event dating back to 1775.

Appleby-in-Westmoreland, northwest England, is famous for hosting the Appleby Horse Fair, an annual event that attracts thousands of people from the gypsy, Roma, and Traveler communities to come and buy and sell horses.

The event's website describes it as an "annual gathering of Gypsies and Travellers" and has been running since 1775, according to Visit Cumbria.

The Fair is billed as the biggest traditional Gypsy fair in Europe, with more than 10,000 people arriving in in an estimated 1,000 mobile homes and caravans.

The Traveller and Romani people, traditionally called the Gypsy community (although largely considered a negative term), is a cultural term for the Roma diaspora.