I will have a full post up for my Look Up London walk in the next few weeks, but with the last bits of snow and cold lingering here in the middle of Canada, I wanted to share this now. I have to admit, when people in the UK complain that it’s cold, my first inclination is to laugh. Yes, I know that it all has to do with what you are used to. And yes, I know that damp cold vs dry cold makes a difference. However, when you live somewhere that is routinely colder than Mars, you have a different perspective. So, colour me shocked when I found out that London Frost Fairs used to be a regular occurrence!
Time for a little natural history! The seventeenth to nineteenth centuries were rather a Little Ice Age, and Britain was included in that. Although snow seems to be a bit of a novelty over there now, there was snow aplenty! And yes, the Thames itself froze over. It seems odd to imagine now, but the River Thames was home to several frost fairs, and Southwark would have been the perfect place to catch them! These panels are permanently set up in Southwark now, on the Thames path, if you want to find them for yourself.
“Behold the liquid Thames now frozen ore | That lately Ships of might Burthen bore”. These lines were written by a Southwark artist, a sculptor named Richard Kindersley. Because of the structure of the old London Bridge, the river would dam up and freeze. (It doesn’t happen now due to a) weather changing, and b) a different bridge design.) The last fair was in 1814, and they actually brought an elephant onto the ice to prove that it was thick enough to stand on!
“Here you may see Beef Roasted on the Spit | And for your Money you may taste a bit”. If you were attending one of these London frost fairs, like Elizabeth I would do, you could have roasted food, mulled wine, buy frost fair souvenirs, and even play games. (I like to think they are what our warming huts here in Winnipeg are now based on!) After learning more about them, I am sad that the UK no longer has these. I am lucky to live somewhere you can skate for kilometres on different rivers, you can buy snacks, and even eat a full restaurant on the ice! It is a hard decision, but I think that this may be one of my favourite parts of our Southwark walk!
What do you know of the London Frost Fairs?
Cheers,
The Historian
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