However, as you may imagine from holding a festival on a rather precarious piece of ice, there was the occasional tragedy. In this painting from 1677, you can see how thick the ice would have been on the Thames. The famous English writer and diariest John Evelyn described it in extensive detail, writing:Ĭoaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires to and fro, as in the streetes, sliding with skeetes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cookes, tipling and other lewd places, so that it seemed a bacchanalian triumph or carnival on the water, whilst it was a severe judgement on the land, the trees not onely splitting as if lightning-struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers places, and the very seas so lock’d up with ice, that no vessels could stir out or come in.Įven kings and queens would join in the festivities, with King Charles reportedly enjoying a spitroasted ox at this very fair.

To keep the shopkeepers warm, there were even fires within their tents!ĭuring the Great Winter of 1683 / 84, where even the seas of southern Britain were frozen solid for up to two miles from shore, the most famous frost fair was held: The Blanket Fair. There were football pitches, bowling matches, fruit-sellers, shoemakers, barbers… even a pub or two. During December the ice had been firm enough to allow people to walk between Southwark to the City, but it was not until January when the ice became so thick that people started setting up camp on it. The first recorded frost fair was during the winter of 1607 / 08.

These Frost Fairs would have been quite a spectacle, full of hastily constructed shops, pubs, ice skating rinks… everything that you would expect in the crowded streets of London but on ice! In fact, between 16 there were a total of seven major fairs, as well as countless smaller ones. During winter, pieces of ice would get lodged between the piers and effectively dam up the river, meaning it was easier for it to freeze.Īlthough these harsh winters often brought with them famine and death, it was the local Londonders – as enterprising and resilient as ever – who decided to make the most of it and set up the Thames Frost Fairs. The other catalyst was the medieval London Bridge and its piers, and specifically how closely spaced together they were. There were two main reasons for this the first was that Britain (and the entire of the Northern Hemisphere) was locked in what is now known as the ‘Little Ice Age’. Between 16, it was not uncommon for the River Thames to freeze over for up to two months at time.

Medieval 2 england guide