Thames Landscape Strategy - Hampton to Kew -

Frost Fayres break the ice with judges

Last Monday was a very important day for the Thames Landscape Strategy. We were being judged for the ‘National Waterway Renaissance’ Awards- the prestigious award coveted by those of us working in waterway management and restoration for canals and rivers. Nominations are invited for a number of different categories, and projects range in size from the restoration of entire derelict canals to small community projects clearing out old ditches.

For the first time in the history of the awards the Thames Landscape Strategy (TLS) had been nominated in the ‘Partnership’ category as one of three projects chosen from across the UK for ‘excellence in our field’.

So we were extremely excited as we gathered at dawn and made our way down to the riverside. The sun was only just breaking through the morning fog and the Thames looked at its mid-winter best. The riverside was covered in a thick layer of frost and the conversation soon wondered to the old London Frost Fayres that took place on the river up until the last century. These were not regular features, only happening during the coldest of winters.

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 the great gatherings that took place on the frozen water. The 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 and the widening of bridge spans across the river have all but stopped river ice from forming today. This said, the River does still freeze upstream of London notably in 1963 and again in 1995.

Back down on the riverside, our ramblings on the frost fayres soon broke the ice with the National Waterways Awards judges and we were quickly engaged in the more pressing subject of our recent project work and how the Thames Landscape Strategy was being used to guide riverside regeneration. One of the topics the judges showed most interested in was the way that the TLS engages with the community to come up with local solutions to environmental management. As anyone who has followed the development of the Arcadia Heritage Lottery Fund Bid will know, very detailed and specific solutions are being found for each particular site. Whilst the Thames Landscape Strategy provides the over-arching principles to be followed – it is the forming of local solutions based on local needs that has been central to much of the projects success.

This necessitates in a very detailed planning process. A solution to a particular problem one side of the river may be completely different to the solution for the same problem on the direct opposite bank. This attention to detail impressed the judges who all agreed that this ground-breaking approach was essential in such an important and beautiful stretch of river.

We talked about the progression of the project and I was able to show them the new lights under the Richmond Bridge pedestrian arch that have recently been lit (just in time for Christmas) to cut down the potential for crime in this formally dark tunnel. The design highlights the three phases in the bridges construction and has been developed so not to throw any light pollution beyond the arch itself. We also talked about the new maintenance regime and the plan to tidy up Radnor Gardens over the next couple of weeks in order to spruce the place up before the main lottery funded works start in early 2005.

Our final topic of conservation was the launch of the Thames Landscape Strategy’s latest project ‘Teddington Gateway’ at the Teddington Film Studios. This took place last week in partnership with the Environment Agency, local business, waterman and the local community. It will be a multi-million pound project (although at the very early planning stage) and would realise a whole series of landscaping and navigation improvements to the Lock and possible repairs to the suspension bridge. Running alongside the environmental improvements is an associated plan to reverse the decline in the use of the river by trip and pleasure boats. There are many practical ways that the TLS can help in this area and over the coming months we hope to propose new and exciting plans to give the river and those who make their living from it a new lease of life just as the Frost Fayres did in earlier hard times.

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