St Neots: Ice skating on the River Great Ouse was a sport

January and February are always the coldest months of the year because although the winter solstice (the shortest darkest day of the year) occurs around December 22, in the northern hemisphere, it takes time for the land, water and air to cool down and produce the coldest weather.

Throughout the Victorian period and into the 1960s, Britain was regularly subjected to freezing winter conditions when lakes, rivers and fen drains would freeze hard.

This created the perfect conditions for skating and also for playing ‘bandy’ now known as ice hockey.

Ice skaters in St Neots in 1889. (Image: Cambridgeshire Community Archives)

The earliest English evidence we have for ice skating comes from animal bone ‘skates’ found during archaeological excavations across the UK.

Bone skates found near Ramsey suggest local people may have been skating on ice since the Bronze age, more than 4,000 years ago.

Fen skaters on the River Great Ouse (Image: The Hunts Post)

Fen skaters on the River Great Ouse. (Image: The Hunts Post)

The earliest written evidence dates to the 1170s when a monk in London recorded young men with bones tied to their feet sliding across the ice.

By the Tudor period, skates were being made of iron, and diarist Samuel Pepys recorded seeing ice skating in London in February 1662.

By the early 1800s skating had become a popular pastime in the St Neots area and across the fens, with regular prize speed skating competitions which attracted large crowds.

In 1857 the cold weather was so severe that people were seen ‘skating about the streets’ of St Neots on the "glassy surface".

If the river did not freeze hard enough to allow safe skating local people could often skate safely on the flooded fields beside the river.

It was during the very cold winter of 1890-91 that the St Neots Skating Association was formed to organise races and bandy matches and to enable the flooding of the Lammas meadow, part of St Neots common.

It was during that same winter that John McNish, a partner at Paine’s brewery and a director of the Paper Mill, offered a silver skating challenge cup as a prize for a race over a three-quarters of a mile course, from Days Brewery to Lammas meadow and back.

The cup was first contested on Boxing Day 1890 when it was won by J. Grunwell.

During the same period of freezing weather Mr Towgood of the St Neots Paper provided an ox roast with bread and beer for local people on the banks of the frozen river.

The reputation of St Neots as the home of bandy was promoted during the 1890-91 season by Charles Tebbutt, the creator of the modern game of ice hockey, who visited Holland, Germany and Scandinavia to promote the game, and organise the first international bandy match between England and Holland in 1891.

To discover more visit St Neots Museum’s February exhibition, Skating on Ice, which runs from February 6 until March 9.