| For modern day Londoners, it's hard to believe | | | | including those from outside the city, who would |
| that a river as mighty as the Thames could ever | | | | flock to public houses and hotels in London to join |
| be ground to a halt by freezing over. However, | | | | the winter fun. John Evelyn, a writer who cast |
| historic accounts and paintings teach us that at | | | | considerable light on the art, culture and politics of |
| one time the Thames regularly froze over - | | | | London during the 1600s, wrote one of the most |
| producing ice that was thick enough to support | | | | colourful descriptions of the Thames Frost Fair. He |
| not just the weight of people, but of an elephant! | | | | wrote: |
| The climate during this period was known as the | | | | "Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, |
| 'little ice age' which meant much colder winters, | | | | and from several other stairs too and fro, as in |
| but it was also the fact that the Thames was | | | | the streets, sleds, sliding with skates, bull-baiting, |
| wider and shallower and therefore flowed more | | | | horse and coach races, puppet plays and |
| slowly that led to it icing over on a regular basis. | | | | interludes, cooks, tippling and other lewd places, so |
| The Old London Bridge also slowed the flow of | | | | that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or |
| the river as it was supported on many closely | | | | carnival on the water." |
| spaced piers, taking on the properties of a leaky | | | | The Frost Fairs were often short lived and |
| dam. | | | | became shorter and shorter as the climate grew |
| This harsh, cold weather often deprived many | | | | milder; the demolishing of the old London Bridge |
| London tradesman of their usual work; the ice | | | | also increased the flow of the Thames and |
| was a disaster for river traders as the ports | | | | further reduced the likelihood of a freeze over. |
| came to a standstill, and many commodities | | | | On the 1st of February 1814, the final ever frost |
| became scarce. The more enterprising of those | | | | fair began. It was to last just 4 days, during which |
| hard-up workers realised that the freezing of the | | | | an elephant was led across the river below |
| Thames attracted a great many visitors who | | | | Blackfriars Bridge - the last time such a spectacle |
| came to witness the spectacle, which gave them | | | | was ever seen on the Thames. |
| the idea to set up booths and stalls selling coffee, | | | | It's now been almost 200 years since the |
| beers and souvenirs, leading to the first official | | | | Thames has froze over, but in 2002 the city of |
| Frost Fair in 1608. | | | | London decided to celebrate the history of the |
| The fairs quickly grew in size and notoriety, with | | | | Thames Frost Fairs by setting up the Bankside |
| all manner of winter activities taking place such as | | | | Frost Fair. It may not offer much in the way of |
| ice skating, ice bowling and sledging, as well as | | | | Thames ice, but it's still the coolest and largest |
| playing host to other events that were popular at | | | | free winter event in London, so why not visit the |
| the time such as fox hunting and bear baiting. | | | | capital this winter and remember the days when |
| The fairs would attract huge numbers of people, | | | | Londoners took to the ice. |