Skating rinks, funfairs and booths serving hot food and drink spring up across many cities in December. But these festivities aren’t a modern phenomenon – they’re rooted in the frost fairs of our past, held on London’s River Thames from the 1600s until 1814.
Frost fairs are associated with the “little ice age” – the long periods of bitter European winters between the 14th and 19th centuries. Although climatic conditions enabled the ice to freeze in a certain way, they weren’t the only part of the story.
