Travellers riding horses and carts yesterday ran roughshod through leafy Surrey as they caused chaos by driving through red lights and crashing into cars.
Up to 100 horse carts were causing ‘mayhem’ as they sped through towns and villages causing motorists to swerve out of the way and screeching to a halt.
One pub was forced to close after it was trashed as bottles of spirits were grabbed from behind the bar and smashed on the floor.
Police last night blanketed the whole of Elmbridge with a dispersal order giving officers the power to remove groups of two or more people from the area.
Extra patrols will be in force today with the order in place until 3.55pm.
The affluent area is known as Britain’s Beverly Hills and has been called home by the likes of Premier League stars John Terry, Frank Lampard, and Ashley Cole.
One mother said her two children were left terrified when one of the horses crashed into her car as she hit out at the ‘lawless behaviour’.
Travellers were also seen ‘banging on the bonnets of cars’ and urinating on the streets.
A local said her plans were ruined as they were left trapped in their village when roads around her were forced to close ‘due to the chaos’.
‘Drunk men [were] swearing in front of young children and urinating down the local side streets,’ she said.
Another resident wrote on Facebook that he saw a group of up to 60 horse carts heading towards Hampton Court.
‘If you are wondering why there is so much traffic around Sandown, it is due to the horse racing…. but NOT the conventional horse racing you might expect,’ he said.
‘There is 50 to 60 of these and it is causing mayhem. They are not stopping at red lights so traffic has come to a standstill… I saw two of them crashing into each other.’
A landlord, speaking exclusively to on the condition of anonymity, said his staff were left petrified when around 100 turned up and trashed his village pub.
The group had been served ‘one or two drinks’ when things started to turn ‘rowdy’, he said.
‘They were pulling bottles off the shelves and the manager had to close the pub to get them out,’ he said.
‘They came behind the bar and pulled some spirit bottles off the shelves and then poured them on the floor and smashed the bottles.
‘It was quite frightening for the staff. We are not a town centre bar that is able to deal with that sort of behaviour. We are just a little village pub.’
The group had turned up outside the pub at around 3pm leaving their horses on the road and in people’s driveways.
Within an hour they had created total carnage and forced the pub to temporarily shut its doors to clean up the mess.
‘We had to shut because of the huge number in the area, it was the only way to deal with it,’ the landlord said.
‘They had broken various bits so we had to clean up because it was a mess. The bar staff dealing with it were quite shaken, it was a huge number of people in the venue.
‘I’ve seen it before where they arrive in horses and carts and zip up [the street]. I’ve never seen that number of travellers at once in this area. I’ve never seen it in that magnitude, it was huge.’
He added: ‘They were blocking the roads and then were just jumping off and leaving their horses in the road or in someone’s driveway.
‘They were zipping along on their mobile phones so whether the horses were under control or not… god knows. When you get such numbers of them it becomes chaos.’
The boozer was last year threatened by the travelling community to be sued for £250,000 for discrimination when it refused to serve a group of 50 people.
The landlord told the lawsuit scare had put them in a ‘difficult position’.
He said: ‘I know every pub in this village received one of these letters.
‘If we refuse to serve them under grounds of safety we are likely to face prosecution for disrimination, but when we do serve them they just take over and smash the place up. We don’t have any protection.’
understands the group had visited a number of pubs in the borough, including the Watermans Arms in Hersha, which did not report any problems.