Sample Record

Sample Record for Search: Newspapers-United Kingdom

WHEN THE THAMES FROZE; WINTER
Times of London - Saturday December 30, 1989
By: George Drower
Section: Features
Word Count: 874

Text:
On Boxing Day 250 years ago Londoners awoke astonished to find the Thames frozen over. Huge ice floes had jammed under the 25 narrow arches of old London Bridge on the ebb tide, and a severe frost had then locked the ice firmly together for miles. A remarkable fair was established on the ice and was to last for nine weeks.
City-dwellers were suddenly released from their cramped streets by the frozen river, which created an open vista in the capital. Regardless of the thickness of the ice, varying from 18ft to only 12in, a cheery devil-may-care attitude spread, and tens of thousands flocked on to the frozen river. Country squires travelled from afar to see the astonishing spectacle. Along parts of the river, mountains of ice resembled the face of a stone quarry.
A street of brightly coloured booths and tents, which grew in number each week, was soon constructed. Fairground attractions included swings, merry-go-rounds and puppet-shows. Ladies played skittles, and gentlemen the fashionable game of bowls. While cheering supporters warmed their hands with baked potatoes, teams of apprentices risked breaking legs at hockey and football. There were donkey, horse and wagon races. Coaches crunched over the ice between Blackfriars and Westminster.
Several vintners in the Strand brought a large ox from Smithfield and roasted it whole on the ice. One well-patronized side show was the roasting of a sheep, called "Lapland Mutton", over a charcoal fire in the middle of the river; admission was charged to people wishing to come and watch. All prices at the fair were high. A popular rhyme was: "What you can buy for threepence on the shore, will cost you fourpence on the Thames or, more."
Although the Thames has frozen on 20 occasions since Roman times, frivolity on the frost-covered river did not begin until the winter of 1564, when Queen Elizabeth walked over the ice to watch an archery contest. At the first real fair, in 1683 called the "Blanket Fair" because tents were made of bedclothes the "Merry Monarch", Charles II, hunted a fox on the river. It was only in the 18th century that frost fairs reached their zenith, when a comprehensive range of public amusements of a kind which was simultaneously being developed at water pageants, London pleasure gardens and fairs on terra firma was applied to the frozen river.
An irony of the 1739-40 winter was that, although the fair gave great pleasure, the freeze caused tremendous misery. In the Thames estuary ships sank under the weight of ice. With the transport system paralysed, coal and bread became scarce. Necessities of life fetched such exorbitant amounts that the poor could barely afford them. An eyewitness at the time observed: "The fishermen, carpenters, bricklayers etc., with their tools and utensils in mourning, walked through the streets in large bodies, imploring relief for their own and families' necessities." Such was the spirit of seasonal goodwill when the Lord Mayor launched an appeal to help the poor that even the parsimonious George II subscribed generously.
To carry passengers, some watermen's boats were mounted on wheels, or without sails, were used as horse-drawn sledges. Later the water-men broke the ice close to the shore and, throwing bridges with toll-bars across, charged sightseers to get to the ice.
The imminent ending of the fair provided cause for levity. On one temporary building a wag pinned a notice: "This Booth to Let. The present possessor of the premises is Mr Frost. His affairs, however, not being on a permanent footing, a dissolution or bankruptcy may soon be expected, and the final settlement of the whole entrusted to Mr Thaw."
The river remained largely frozen until the night of February 17, 1740, when the ice was rent into enormous masses, and drifted with the falling stream. Early the following morning, the residents of the houses on old London Bridge saw ice floes with uninhabited settlements of booths, stalls and tents floating down under their windows and thundering against the arches below. Many of the houses, and also portions of the bridge itself, suffered considerable damage. Such was the cold that it took the rest of the month for the ice to melt.
The last frost fair ran for a month in the winter of 1813-4. Had old London Bridge, with its many, flow-retarding piers, still been standing, there would have been more repetitions of those great fairs subsequently. However, in 1831 it was replaced by a new bridge which was itself shipped off to Arizona in 1973 to be succeeded by the present construction. The building of the Embankment further quickened the river's flow by reducing its width.
Although exceptionally cold winters in 1947 and 1963 meant it was possible to skate along the river at Oxford and cycle over it at Windsor, the structural alterations around London Bridge have kept the lower reaches of the Thames from freezing over. Now increasingly mild weather as a consequence of global warming means it is unlikely the river could ever freeze sufficiently to support a roasting ox. Were a carnival to occur at Christmas again it would more likely be called the "Frozen Turkey Sandwich Fair".

Top