Thames Landscape Strategy - Hampton to Kew -

Frozen Thames

Amazingly there have only been a handful of white Christmases in London over the past 100 years (notably in 1938 and 1976 and although there was no white Christmas this year it has been a particularly cold end to what promises to be quite an exceptionally hot year. Maybe even the hottest on record (the joint warmest to date being 1990 and 1997).
Figures from the Met Office show that the average surface air temperature in the UK has continued to rise in 2006. July was the warmest month ever recorded with a mean temperature of 19.7 °C, September was the warmest September on record and both the summer and autumn were the warmest on record.
Worldwide, the provisional figures for 2006, place the year as the sixth warmest since 1850. Significantly, the top 10 warmest years have all occurred in the last 12 years. What made 2006 even more remarkable is that the rise in temperature was so much higher than that of even the hottest two years recorded to date. Just as disturbing is the mounting evidence that links this warming with human behaviour. There is still no agreement whether this is the case but the evidence is building – soon we may not be able to blame natural factors alone for global warming and accept responsibility that humans have changed the world’s climate and all the consequences that go with this.
It is these consequences (of changing climate) that we now have to plan for along the river. In April 2007, the Environment Agency will publish the long anticipated ‘Thames Estuary 2100’ report. This will set out the ways that the Thames is predicted to change over this century taking into account the impacts of climate change: rising sea levels, droughts and increased flooding. It is set to make quite sobering reading for anyone who lives or works in the Thames floodplain as the full extent of climate change in our part of the world is appreciated. The report will look at flooding from a risk point of view and will propose a 100-year plan as to how this risk can be managed. It is likely that instead of recommending the construction of great walls along the river to keep the rising waters at bay, a policy of ‘making space for water’ will be proposed. This is a much more organic way of managing flooding achieved by putting back the flood plains that we have now largely lost.
No flooding problems for us at the moment – unlike Christmas 2003. That year, there had been so much rain in the run up to Christmas that the river flow coming over Teddington Lock was at extremely high levels necessitating in the closure of the Thames Barrier an incredible 15 times between Christmas and the New Year. This was not to stop central London from flooding but our part of the world – at risk from the floodwater spilling into the tideway at Teddington weir meeting high tides coming up the river.

The current cold snap has shrouded the Thames in a thick layer of mid-winter fog and on several days an early frost making for a very festive sight. It was during the C18th however, that some of coldest winters known took place. During these long cold spells ice formed along the river’s edge upstream of the bridges spanning the Thames at the point where the flow of water is considerably slowed by the bridge arches. With time, the ice slowly extended across the river, thickening to allow great gatherings on the frozen water. These Frost Fayres were first organised by the waterman and lightermen of the day who due to the frozen river could not ply their trade and consequently suffered great hardship during these times. Their traditional boats were harnessed to horses and pulled up and down the river in an attempt to scrape a meagre living to support their families.

Eight large festivals have been recorded on London’s River but it was the great freeze of Christmas 1663 that many remember as the ‘Great Frost Fayre’. A long avenue of shops was erected on the frozen river selling the variety of goods known to Stuart London surrounded by a cornucopia of entertainment which included bear bating, puppet shows, skating, coach races and much drinking – described by Evelyn as a ‘bacchanalian triumph!’

Closer to home, the river at Kingston froze over during the winter of 1895. An ox was roasted on the ice for the townsfolk. The great carving knife and fork used for the occasion can still be seen at Kingston Museum. Since this great era, increased pollution, rising temperatures and the widening of bridge spans across the river has all but stopped river ice from formingtoday. This said, the River does still freeze upstream of London notably in 1963 and again in 1995 near Wallingford Bridge.

Arcadian Fact
King Henry VIII celebrated his first Christmas as king next to the River Thames at Richmond Palace marking the occasion with a great tournament on the Green. Celebrations included banqueting, pageantry, jousting, dressing up and merrymaking. Festivities started on Christmas Eve and lasted for the twelve days of Christmas finishing on Twelfth Night.
The Palace was decorated in holly, ivy and bay and a huge Yule log was burnt in the great Hall where guests watched mummery plays before tucking into a hearty feast of roast swan, suckling pig and venison rounded off with the traditional Christmas delicacy of wild boar head.

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