In Dec 1683 the River Thames froze for a period of six weeks during which a great Frost Fair took place on the frozen surface.

The printer Croom sold souvenir cards written with the customer's name, the date, and the fact that the card was printed on the Thames; he was making five pounds a day (ten times a labourer's weekly wage). King Charles II (age 53) bought one.

Evelyn's Diary. 23 Dec 1683. The smallpox very prevalent and mortal; the Thames frozen.

Evelyn's Diary. 27 Dec 1683. I went to visite Sir John Chardin (age 40), a French gentleman who had travell'd three times by land into Persia, and had made many curious researches in his travells, of which he was now setting forth a relation. It being in England this year one of the severest frosts that had hap pen'd of many yeares, he told me the cold in Persia was much greater, the ice of an incredible thicknesse; that they had little use of iron in all that country, it being so moiste (tho' the aire admirably clear and healthy), that oyle would not preserve it from rusting, so that they had neither clocks nor watches; some padlocks they had for doores and boxes.

Evelyn's Diary. 01 Jan 1684. The weather continuing intolerably severe, streetes of booths were set upon the Thames; the aire was so very cold and thick, as of many yeares there had not ben the like. The smallpox was very mortal.

Evelyn's Diary. 06 Jan 1684. The river quite frozen.

Evelyn's Diary. 09 Jan 1684. I went crosse the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to beare not onely streetes of boothes, in which they roasted meate, and had divers shops of wares, quite acrosse as in a towne, but coaches, carts, and horses, passed over. So I went from Westminster Stayres to Lambeth [Map], and din'd with the Archbishop (age 66): where I met my Lord Bruce, Sir Geo. Wheeler (age 32), Coll. Cooke, and severall divines. After dinner and discourse with his Grace till evening prayers, Sir Geo. Wheeler (age 32) and I walked over the ice from Lambeth Stayres to the horse ferry.

Evelyn's Diary. 16 Jan 1684. The Thames was fill'd with people and tents, selling all sorts of wares as in the Citty.

Evelyn's Diary. 24 Jan 1684. The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with boothes in formal streetes, all sorts of trades and shops furnish'd and full of commodities, even to a printing presse, where the peopje and ladyes tooke a fancy to have their names printed, and the day and yeare set down when printed on the Thames; this humour tooke so universally, that 'twas estimated the printer gain'd £5. a day, for printing a line onely, at sixpence a name, be sides what he got by ballads, &c. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires to and fro, as in the streetes, sleds, sliding with skeetes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cookes, tlpling, and other lewd places, so that it seem'd to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water, whilst it was a severe judgment on the land, the trees not onely splitting as if lightning-struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers places, and the very seas so lock'd up with ice, that no vessells could stir out or come in. The fowles, fish, and birds, and all our exotiq plants and greenes universally perishing. Many parkes of deer were destroied, and all sorts of fuell so deare that there were greate con tributions to preserve the poore alive. Nor was this severe weather much lesse intense in most parts of Europe, even as far as Spaine and the most Southern tracts. London, by reason of the excessive coldnesse of the aire hindering the ascent of the smoke, was so fill'd with the fuliginous steame of the sea-coale, that hardly could one see crosse the streetes, and this filling the lungs with its grosse particles, exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one could scarcely breath. Here was no water to be had from the pipes and engines, nor could the brewers and divers other tradesmen worke, and every moment was full of disastrous accidents.

Evelyn's Diary. 05 Feb 1684. It began to thaw, but froze againe. My coach crossed from Lambeth [Map] to the Horseferry at Millbank, Westminster. The booths were almost all taken downe, but there was first a Map or Landskip cut in copper representing all the manner of the camp, and the several actions, sports, and pastimes thereon, in memory of so signal a frost.