Boroughgate runs in a straight cobbled line from the castle at the top to St Lawrence's Church at the bottom, and walking down it is the quickest way to understand Appleby. Georgian frontages stand on either side, independent shops among them, and the street is counted one of the finest Georgian streetscapes in the north of England. You are walking the length of a town that was the county town of Westmorland from the Norman Conquest until 1974, when the county was abolished and Appleby was left holding a title with nothing behind it.
At the top of the hill, Appleby Castle keeps a 12th-century stone keep that is fully intact and can be climbed. It began as a Norman motte and bailey after 1066. The grounds are open to visitors, and from them the Eden Valley opens out — the Pennines rising to the east, the Lake District fells visible to the west, and the River Eden curving around the town below.
The castle belonged to Lady Anne Clifford, who spent her later life restoring the Westmorland estates she had spent decades fighting to inherit. She rebuilt Appleby Castle after Parliament dismantled its defences in 1648, restored the church, and built the Hospital of St Anne almshouses in the town, which are still occupied. She is buried in St Lawrence's, at the bottom of the street.
St Lawrence's is Grade I listed and Norman at its core, 12th century with later additions. Lady Anne's tomb is inside, the church she restored in the years before her death in 1676.
There are two pubs worth knowing. The Royal Oak is a former coaching inn on the road east out of town, CAMRA listed, with a tap room panelled in oak and a separate lounge and dining room. The kitchen does home-made food and a Tuesday Pie Night, and there is a gelato parlour on the premises, which is not a sentence you write about most Cumbrian coaching inns. Two changing ales, usually local. Dogs get doggie dinners.
The Tufton Arms Hotel sits on the market square, a traditional town hotel with an elegant, cosy bar. It's used mainly by residents but takes walk-ins, and the kitchen serves noon to two and half five to half eight.
The market square earns its name. Appleby has held a weekly market under a charter dating to Norman times, and the town appears in the Domesday Book as the principal town of Westmorland.
Once a year the town's population multiplies. Appleby Horse Fair, established by royal charter in 1685 and held every June, is the largest horse fair in the world and one of the biggest gatherings of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in Europe. Tens of thousands come for the week, and horses are washed in the River Eden at Gallows Hill.
The rest of the year the river is quieter, and a flat path follows it through town and out into the countryside. For something steeper there is Nine Standards Rigg, high on the moors.
The station is on the Settle–Carlisle line, one of the great scenic railways, and it stops in a town most trains would be forgiven for missing.
