"Do British Lakes Ever Freeze Over?" Topic

I'm assuming the answer is no, but thought I'd check. I'm aware that size and depth and temperature are the crucial factors. I'd be stunned to hear lochs or bigger bodies ever froze much, but what about smaller?

The reason I ask this is because I'm working on a scenario set in Britain in 1400AD and it could really use a frozen lake (or really large pond). There's no reason to let history get in the way of a good game, of course, but there is still a little part of me that would like some historical precedent before adding this. The game could be set in England, Wales, Scotland, even Ireland, I'd just love to learn if there are any accounts that mention this. Of course, maybe it never happened.

By frozen, I mean enough so as to ride a horse over it. At worst, I might fall back on saying winters were colder at that time than they are now (which I believe is true), though not so cold as the little ice age which came later.

Any help historically or climatically would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

a lake near us has frozen over in a bad winter and we are in the south of the uk

Hi

Didn't the Thames river freeze over in the 1800's??

The canal here (Yorkshire) used to freeze most years in the 1980s. This was hard enough to ride a pushbike on. In the last bad winter (some 5 years or so ago) the river froze over. Ice fairs on the Thames were relatively common but there has not been one since 1814.

So given a hard enough winter yes.

Yep, certainly there were fairs held on the frozen river Thames in the 'little ice age' but it hasn't frozen in living memory.

Lakes certainly freeze over in the coldest British weather, sometimes they'll even support a person, which explains why several dozen supermarket trolleys became stranded on small island in the middle of a University campus lake some years ago and needed rescuing by a very annoyed bloke in a small rowing boat……

In the Scottish part of Britain (Scotland), it may be a bit colder than further south, but you would only ever find one frozen lake if at all.

There is only one lake in Scotland, all other bodies of water which could be called lakes elsewhere are actually lochs.

But to answer your question it would be quite unusual to have a frozen loch or lake in Britain.

We would have to have a winter first!

Strange. Manchester is 53 degrees north, Chicago is 41 degrees north. All the lakes hereabouts freeze over solid enough to play hockey on. Not every winter but pretty often. And Edinburgh is 55 degrees….

Mus be the polar vortex or gulf stream or something.

'Yep, certainly there were fairs held on the frozen river Thames in the 'little ice age' but it hasn't frozen in living memory.'

Actually the Thames froze over in 1963.

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Nothing ever reaches 53 degrees in the UK ever! Do you know why? Because we use a proper temperature measurement scale otherwise known as Celsius!

@EC

Edinburgh may well be the most northern of the UK capitals but it is blessed with a mild climate. The gulf stream certainly helps but our main source of heat is the hot air rising from Westminister and Holyrood.

It is just as well that we don't get much snow here because it only takes half an inch of it to close down the country.

Chicago has a Continental climate, cold winters and hot summers, while the UK has a Maritime one, being an island we are kept warm by the sea, though it doesn't always feel like that.

As to the original question, yes British lakes and lochs have been known to freeze over especially if your game is set in 1400. Check out the "Little Ice Age" on Google and you will find that there was a period in the 1300/1400s when very cold winters were much more common than they are nowadays.

Rhysius,
Extra Crispy is talking about degrees of latitude not temperature.
Some of us in the UK live well above 53 degrees of latitude. Them that doesn't are all Southerners! : )

My wife almost started a riot calling folks Northerners. It was outside of Fort Sumnter in South Carolina. A very pro-Southern tour guide was going on and insulting Northerners. She wife quietly stated to me "But he's a Northerner." And she said just as he paused for a breath and the wind died down and there was absolute stillness at that moment. So everyone heard it. He was enraged.

My wife is Brazilian so according to her if you are from north of the equator you are a Northerner.

This has all been extremely helpful, gentlemen, thank you. I'll go ahead and use it, and at least have a bit historical precedent for doing so. Enough to silence the worse sort of pedants, anyway.

I greatly appreciate the help (and the anecdotes as well)!

Keira Knightly and the Knights of the Round Table battled pursuing Saxons on an ice-covered lake in "King Arthur" (2004).

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Fair play Garrison, I should have said my living memory ;-)

@dBerczerk That's history !

I'm old enough to remember it – or, would have if I lived in London. I do remember walking to school then over the top of a tree.

I live on the edge of London (Epping Forest) and our local ponds will freeze solid for at least a few days most years.

I so rarely get to be the young whippersnapper these days !

Gulf Stream helps to keep things there balmy by comparison with Chicago.

Plenty bodies of water freeze in Scotland, not to the same extent as in Canada though. By that I mean the thickness of the ice.
I do recall seeing film footage of me as a small child playing on Leven beach and there must be atleast 6-7 feet of the shoreline frozen (north Sea).

Jon

Most don't realized that York is even with Quebec, and Scotland is even farther north.

The Gulf Stream is all the difference.

As a youngster we had it cold enough to walk on the park boating lake in the winter of 1963. That's Bristol, south west of England.

I recall that St Mary's Loch (a lake) on the Scottish Borders, was frozen over one February some time ago. Pretty solid too.

Its certainly possible but where ever in the UK you are talking about there's no way you would get me to walk on it in plate armour!

If it wasn't for the Gulf Stream, we'd have the same climate as Nova Scotia. AS noted above, we are island so don;t have continental temperature extremes.

But yes, lakes (and rivers) do freeze over, even now and in the middle of cities let alone the countryside if there is a long enough cold spell.

In recent years I regularly run past a (shallow) lake which feezes solid in winter, I have seen Grasmere (a not inconsiderable lake in Cumbria) half frozen, I have somewhat unwisely walked on a frozen canal. When I was a kid we used too sledge every winter over a frozen lake at the bottom of a hill.

Back in the Middle Ages, especially during the mini Ice Age? Everything froze solid.

And yet in Edinburgh it`s not entirely unknown for the local freshwater canals and ponds to freeze over in a bad winter.
It can get a bit strange as well since the temperature can drop rapidly at night in calm conditions without any prior snowfall so you can get the ice sometimes for a couple of weeks without there being any trace of snow on the ground!
Hence this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skating_Minister

In Scotland though its been unknown within living memory for any of the bigger bodies of water to freeze over completely but some icing of shorelines has happened on occasion.

The Fens froze throughout their history (and occasionally still do)
fenskating.co.uk

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I can't thank you all enough for taking the time to post. It's actually been a very good lesson for me. Thank you!

There is a riddle in Sir Walter Scott's novel The Talisman that involved riding across a frozen lake. If Scott didn't find that it strained artistic license too much, then you should be okay.

Ron

Well, the Scots invented curling as something to do when lochs (and the Lake of Mentieth) froze over.

I'd entirely forgotten about curling. Now I feel rather silly…

And if it was good enough for Scott, it's good enough for me!

We have plenty of water to freeze up as it rains so much:)

It just doesn't freeze for four months at a time, like in Canada.

I fell through the ice on Virginia Water lake in Surrey in 1963. My brother pulled me out but it was his fault we were there in the first place.

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Baltic froze in 1407 according to this, so reckon fair chance that northern British lakes or lochs froze and look at 1434/35. I know this is a bit later than your 1400 dare, but poetic licence?

These days no – and note Fen skating occurs on flooded fields so the chance of falling through is minimised…

However historically the climate was colder – look up The Little Ice Age which lasted from 1300-1850ish.

A good friend of mine had to be airlifted off an ice floe that broke away in the Tay River (2 mile wide salt water estuary) when fishing – some years ago, but yes, Lochs, lakes, rivers do freeze over to the point of being able to support crossings. The only reasons that Scotland isn't like northern Russia is the heatsink of the surrounding water and the Gulf Stream. (If this ever dies, thanks to ice-melt changing temperature and salinity, and it's looking like it might be sooner than originally postulated), Scotland will be Iceland…

And one of my ex bosses wanted me to go work in Minnesota, which I understand has one of the most radical temperature variations in the world… no thanks..

The River Severn in Worcester has been known to freeze over, solidly enough to skate on.

Prior to the Mini Ice Age, in the first half of the 12th century, in "fact", Cadfael saw a "virgin in the ice", encased in a good two to three feet of solid river ice, that formed in under a day. So "ye gods!" it was cold back then!…

We do love to talk about the weather don't we:)

When I was station in England in the 80's I remember seeing some Swans that had gotten frozen in one of the canals. Luckily the weather became warmer in the morning, so they weren't stuck for long.

I have to admit, this seems to have happened more than I would have expected. Thank you all!

For a number of years I lived on the east coast of Scotland (St. Andrews) and didn't see much freezing at all beyond a few puddles and rivulets; but then, because of its location by the sea and the Gulf Stream, the town has a relatively balmy climate compared to much of Britain. Ooh, but that wind could be piercing!

Many thanks again for all the pointers!

Piercing cold in St. Andrews….you bet. And it's worse in winter.