How today’s Winter London might have looked quite tame 400 years ago.

With some true winter mornings arriving this week in the Medieval Town Square of Salisbury and really freezing weather 80 miles away in London, Sarum are dwelling upon winters in the capital some 400 years ago.

Sarum just loves the winter spectacle that is modern London. Much as we prize heritage, some of those modern buildings are real stars in that stunning winter skyline. The Gherkin, the Shard and the list goes on and on. Mostly hits and just a few misses.

Go back to the 1600’s and we wonder whether London of that era would have provided a winter spectacle that would stun us today? We think the Old London Bridge and a Thames Frost Fair would beat some modern offerings hands down. The Old London Bridge must have been the Ponte Vecchio on steroids. 19 arches, overhanging houses crammed in to cover the whole span of mother Thames and a narrow chaotic roadway across. Thames boatmen providing additional entertainment by taking their life in their hands to shoot the rapids between piers. In the winter the combination of the medieval “mini Ice Age” and a very constricted flow through the Bridge caused ice floes to jam between the narrow piers and the river froze, sometimes up to 0.5 metre thick.

Let’s have a night out at the Thames Frost Fair of 1666 and forget the Great Fire of London. There is practically a small town built on the ice. It is just chaos. Lights, music, the smell of food cooking, dancing, entertainers and thousands of people are jostling to enjoy themselves. Add in lots of giggling girls, loud mouthed guys, plenty of drinking to excess and rubbish being talked. Wow, it sounds like Salisbury on a Saturday night!

The great London Frost Fair

Frost Fairs took place some 40 times up to 1814. The Bridge was eventually knocked down, the river flow speeded up and the climate of Blighty warmed up a smidgen. That was the end of the era of Thames Frost Fairs.

Sarum Hydraulics loves stunning design, whether it is architecture or hydraulics. Look what we do on www.sarum-hydraulics.co.uk .