Light and Life Gipsy Church gathered nearby for their annual convention.

The event, in the grounds of Carlton Towers – home of the Duke of Norfolk’s brother Lord Gerald Fitzalan Howard, and part of the family’s wider estate – involves daily prayer meetings, bible studies and singing in a tent adorned with a banner reading: "God is love”.

The summer gathering, which has taken place at a different location every year since the 1950s, regularly attracts hostility.

Last year a shot was fired by a villager in Cambridgeshire who said that he had been plagued with break-ins and in the grounds his home next to the field where the festival was taking place.

After the group arrived in Carlton on Friday, one pub closed its doors to non-locals and parents would not let their children go out, according to the local County Councillor.

A pub landlord also said he had been sworn at by some girls leaving him shocked.

"I was abused with the sort of language I have never heard in my life, especially from the young girls," said James Smith, licensee at the Forresters Arms in the village.

Councillor Margaret Hulme, a member of North Yorkshire County Council, who lives in Carlton, said the group had caused disruption by flouting the village’s one-way system.

“The elderly people don’t come out … the young people feel threatened when they come out and a lot of people won’t let their children out even though it is the school holidays,” she said.

“Their youths are causing residents to feel anxious because they are a large group and they congregate outside the only village shop – the fish shop."

Jackie Boyd, a senior pastor in the church, said: “It is always the same, it has never been any different.

“I understand people’s feelings, what most people know about gipsies is what they see on My Big Fat Gipsy Wedding.

“They assume there is going to be trouble, the people that we hired the field off have had calls saying that there is going to be bare-knuckle gipsy fighting and horse riding, it is a religious festival we have had it since 1952.”