When the Thames Came to a Standstill: Frost Fairs on the Thames

Between 1309 and 1814, the river Thames froze twenty three times. This ice was thick enough during the sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries on five occasions for a fair to be held on the ice. During this period the global climate phenomenon the Little Ice Age, where global temperatures dropped, caused the temperature to drop low enough for the Thames to freeze. Another contributor was the structure of London Bridge which had been built during the Middle Ages. The many arches of London Bridge meant that it created a dam like structure that meant the Thames froze more easily. A new London Bridge was built in the nineteenth century with fewer arches which as a result further limited the opportunity for the Thames to freeze.
Tom de Castella described the Frost fairs as ‘a cross between a Christmas market, circus and illegal rave’.

Food and drink were especially popular with…