People are being invited to take part in a survey which hopes to find out what people think about Appleby Horse Fair.
Jennifer Whitehead, 26, who grew up in Appleby but is now a master’s student at the University of York studying Cultural Heritage Management, is running the survey as part of her dissertation.
She wants to find out whether the residents of Appleby view the fair as part of their own cultural heritage.
“I want to know whether people want it to continue, their feelings and things like that,” she said.
“In other countries, they protect things that aren’t tangible like castles, which comes under intangible cultural heritage. Festivals, traditional fetes and so on don’t have protection in the UK.
“Some people say there is no intangible heritage in the UK, but we have traditional village fetes and festivals that aren’t protected by legislation.”
Jennifer believes this is the first work of this kind to have been conducted about Appleby Horse Fair.
“Andrew Connell wrote a book about it five or 10 years ago from a historical perspective, but this is the first time it has been looked at from the point of view of local people,” she said.
The responses to the survey have been “mixed”, according to Jennifer.
“I am trying to find out how people feel. If we know how people feel, if the council or another body wanted to change how it is run, they could use this piece of information,” she added.
“If you have feelings about it, let me know, it will only take five or 10 minutes to fill in the survey.”
