Travellers park their horses and caravans by the side of the road en route to Appleby Horse Fair, in Cumbria, northwest England.

Appleby Horse Fair is an annual event that attracks tens of thousands of people on a yearly basis. People often use the fair as an opportunity to trade horses. The travellers wash them in the river and walk them up and down to show them off to potential buyers.

Approximately 10,000 of the attendees are travellers and some 30,000 end up being other interested parties. The event is the biggest traditional fair of its kind in Europe.

The fair has occasionally been criticised for animal cruelty and excessive litter. It runs from June 7-10.

Five days before the annual Appleby Horse Fair, travellers temporarily stop off on the large grass Verges by the village of Winton in Cumbria on their way to the Horse Fair at Appleby about 10 miles away.

They bring hundreds of their horses and tether them at the side of the road creating a hazard for motorist. So this year the the council have provided extra large flashing signs to warn Motorists to slow down and try to avoid any serious accidents which seems to happen every year. The police are constantly patrolling to try and stop any trouble caused for motorists passing through and the locals nearby.

Most of the travellers will move onto the horse fair site at Appleby the middle of next week for the 4 day annual event, which has been there tradition for hundreds of years.