Living in London

A wonderful Saturday morning in London. Up early and onto the number 9 bus just outside Kensington Gardens, riding in the top front seats on a double decker bus, enjoying the best urban vantage point of all time. Frost on the grass, a nip in the air, and a clear sky promising sun. We ride through Knightsbridge, past Hyde Park Corner, along Piccadilly, past Trafalgar Square and St. Martin-in-the-Fields, along the Strand into the theatre district. The bus discharges us on Aldwych street and we walk along the Strand, past the Royal Courts of Justice, toward St Paul’s Cathedral. Here we turn toward the River Thames and cross it on the Millennium Bridge, arriving on the south side of the River. The sun is rising but our breath is still frosty as we walk along the River toward London Bridge. We are en route to our favourite market – the Borough – located at the Southwark Cathedral and Winchester Square. We pass under the southern end of the Southward Bridge, and learn something amazing from a ditty inscribed on some slate panels along the walkway there:

Behold the liquid Thames now frozen o’er
That lately ships of mighty burden bore.
Here you print your name tho’ cannot write
‘Cause numbe’d with cold: ‘Tis done with great delight.
And lay it by: That ages yet to come
May see what things upon the ice were done

– printed on a broadsheet from the Frost Fair of 1739-40

Apparently, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Thames used to freeze! The fact that the river was once much wider and shallower, coupled with the constrictions of the old London Bridge arches (which slowed the course of the river) meant that there were occasions when the Thames actually froze over. On these occasions, booths were set up on the frozen waters, printing presses sold souvenir broadsheets, whole oxen would be roasted and activities such as dancing and archery took place. These Frost Fairs are recorded in the winters of 1564-5, 1683-4, 1715-6, 1739-40 and 1813-4. 1814 was to be the last winter when a Frost Fair was held, as London Bridge was replaced a decade later with a new bridge of fewer arches. With less restrictions the Thames flowed more freely and has never frozen over since.