Carol Ann Duffy’s new poem ‘Frost Fair’ transports us back to London in 1683 and the winter of The Great Frost. From 20 December to 6 February the following year, the Thames froze over and led to a unique spectacle of a Frost Fair, a kind of festival-meets-market. Duffy’s character wanders through this “another town on the Thames” and experiences many of the activities that took place at the time, from the rows of booths selling everything from black pudding to gingerbread to the nine-pin bowling, jugglers and fire-eaters, as captured in the accompanying illustrations by David De Las Heras.
The writer John Evelyn captured the scenes of this 17th-century spectacle: “Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires to and fro, as in the streetes, sliding…
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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2020