The Frost Fair

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    EDWARD MARSTON was born and brought up in South Wales. A full-time writer for over thirty years, he has worked in radio, film, television and the theatre. Prolific and highly successful, he is equally at home writing children's books or literary criticism, plays or biographies and settings for his crime novels range from the world of professional golf to the compilation of the Domesday Survey. The Frost Fair is the fourth book in the series featuring architect Christopher Redmayne and Puritan constable Jonathan Bale, set in Restoration London after the Great Fire of 1666.

The frost still continuing more & more severe, the Thames before

London was planted with bothes in formal streetes, as in a Citty, or

Continual faire, all sorts of trades and shops furnished and full of

Commodities, even to a printing presse…

John Evelyn: Diary

 January 24,1684

Chapter One

    Snow came like a thief in the night. Quickly and silently it fell over the whole of London, searching every last corner and robbing the city of its distinctive appearance. When they awoke next day, Londoners found that they were in the grip of a raging blizzard. Not only did it smother the streets and coat the buildings in white, the snow was blown hither and thither by a mischievous wind that was determined to cause the greatest possible inconvenience. Heavy drifts leaned against doors, sealed up windows and blocked off lanes and alleyways. Wherever there was a gap in a threshold, a hole in a roof or even a tiny opening in some shutters, the snow blew in unbidden. Those who had slept in warm beds were fortunate. Beggars, urchins and stray animals that had spent the night in the open were destined to slumber forever.

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