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n The climate change deniers can stick their fingersnin their ears and go la-la-la all they wish but the climate of ournplanet is changing and it is partly our fault. The climate alters overntime and overall temperatures fluctuate due to a number of factors that arenbeyond our control but we certainly aren’t helping matters, although that’s ansubject for another time and place. One effect of temperature changes is ancycle of ice ages and this includes the Little Ice Ages that happen during thengreater pattern. Opinions differ as to when the last Little Ice Age began andnended but it affected northern Europe during the later Middle Ages and wellninto the modern period.
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| Trouble on the Thames |
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nOne consequence was that rivers and canals were frozennon a regular basis, leading people to hold Frost Fairs on the ice, the mostnfamous being those on the river Thames at London. The earliest record we havenof the Thames freezing over is from 134 CE, when it froze for two months, inn153 many English rivers, including the Thames, froze over, and again in 173,nwhen the frost lasted for three months. In 220, there was a continuous frostnthat lasted for five months, and in 250 the Thames was frozen for nine weeks.nFurther severe winters followed on a regular basis – a frost began on Novembern1st 1076 and lasted until April 15th 1077
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n“In thententh year of his [William the Conqueror] reign, the cold of winter wasnexceeding memorable, both for sharpness and for continuance; for the earthnremained hard from the beginning of November until the midst of April thennensuing.”n
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nA chronicle of 1092 notes,
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n“… the great streams [of England]nwere congealed in such a manner that they could draw two hundred horsemen andncarriages over them; whilst at their thawing, many bridges, both of wood andnstone, were borne down, and divers water-mills were broken up and carried away.”n
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| A Frost Fair |
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nThere were more great frosts that followed, in 1564-65 Holinshed notes in his Chronicles,
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n“People went over and alongst the Thames on the ise, from London Bridge tonWestminster. Some plaied at the football as boldlie there, as if it had been onnthe drie land ; divers of the court being then at Westminster, shot dailie atnprickes set upon the Thames; and the people, both men and women, went on thenThames in greater numbers than in anie street of the Citie of London.”n
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nThenThames froze solid again in 1608, when the first Frost Fair was held on the icenwhen, in addition to playing sports on the river, booths were erected andnstallholders sold ale, wine and food, together with fruit-sellers, shoemakers andneven a barber.
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| The Frost Fair on the Thames 1683-84 |
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nAnother Fair followed in 1684, and was described by John Evelynnin his Diary,
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n“Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and fromnseveral other stairs to and fro, as in the streets, sleds, sliding with skates,na bull-baiting, horse and coach-races, puppet-plays and interludes, cooks,ntippling, and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalianntriumph, or carnival on the water.”n
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nEvelyn also notes that an enterprisingnprinter named Croom set up his press on the ice and sold souvenir ticketsnprinted with the buyer’s name at sixpence a time, earning him in excess of £5nper day, in addition to his regular income from printed ballads and broadsheetsndescribing the daily trials and executions at Newgate Gaol.
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| One of Croom’s souvenir tickets |
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nKing Charles II andnhis royal party visited the Frost Fair and had a souvenir ticket printed onnDutch paper, measuring three and a half inches by four inches, listing theirnnames and concluding with the interesting line ‘Hans in Kelder’, whichnis Dutch for ‘Jack in the Cellar’, indicating that Princess Anne wasnpregnant at the time (she delivered a stillborn daughter on May 12thn1684); the phrase was used proverbially at the time to describe pregnancy andndid not hint at the sex of the child.
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| King Charles II – Croom ticket |
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nIn spite of the jollity and merriment ofnthe Frost Fair, Evelyn marks the disastrous effects the freeze had on, not justnLondon, but the rest of England and even as far south as Spain. Trees froze andnwere split as if by lightning, the frozen seas and rivers meant ships could notnget either in nor out, water, beer and wine froze solid and was sold by weight,nand men and beasts died from the cold. There were severe food and fuelnshortages and widespread starvation across the country.
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| London’s Wonder – Ballad celebrating the 1684 thaw |
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nThe Frost Fairs came tonbe known as Blanket Fairs, after the blankets used to make the booths andntents, and more Blanket Fairs followed whenever the Thames froze over. Inn1739-40, the fair was held and a company of vintners bought an ox at Smithfieldnmarket, which was taken out onto the ice, slaughtered and then roasted on anspit. A fruit-seller, Doll the Pippin Woman, fell through the ice and wasndrowned and the fair ended in confusion when the thaw came suddenly andnunexpectedly, bearing stalls, huts and shops away.
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| The Frost Fair of 1814 |
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nThe last Frost Fair was heldnin 1813-14, when severe ice built up in the river and finally froze into a massnand the usual shops were erected in what was called City Road. There werenswings, skittles, sausage-sellers, singing, printers and book-sellers, and ansheep was roasted whole and sold as ‘Lapland Mutton’ at a shilling anslice. On February 5th the ice began to split and break apart andnthe shops and presses went into the water, as did several unsuspecting persons,nseveral of whom were drowned.
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| The Frost Fair on the Thames 1716 |
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nThis was the final Frost Fair held on the frozennriver, as old London Bridge was replaced in 1831, with wider arches that didnnot encourage the build-up of ice floes, the banks of the river had severalnembankments built upon them, increasing the speed and depth of the water andnthe climate began to warm, making it less likely for the Thames to freezensolid.
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