On the 20th, in consequence of the great accumulation of snow in London, it became necessary to relieve the roofs of the houses by throwing off the load collected upon them. By this means the carriage-ways in the middle of the streets were rendered scarcely passable; and the streams constantly flowing from the open plugs, added to the general mass of ice.
Many coach proprietors, on the northern and western roads, discontinued to run their coaches. In places where the roads were low, the snow had drifted above carriage height. On Finchley-common, by the fall of one night, it lay to a depth of sixteen feet, and the road was impassable even to oxen. On Bagshot-heath and about Esher and Cobham the road was completely choked up. Except the Kent and Essex roads, no others were passable beyond a few miles from London. The coaches of the western road remained stationary at different parts. The Windsor coach was worked through the snow at Colnbrook, which was there sixteen feet deep, by employing about fifty labourers. At Maidenhead-lane, the snow was still deeper; and between Twyford and Reading it assumed a mountainous appearance. Accounts say that, on parts of Bagshot-heath, description would fail to convey an adequate idea of its situation. The Newcastle coach went off the road into a pit upwards of eight feet deep, but without mischief to either man or horse. The middle North-road was impassable at Highgate-hill.
On the 22d of January, and for some time afterwards, the ice on the Serpentine in Hyde-park bore a singular appearance, from mountains of snow which sweepers had collected together in different situations. The spaces allotted for the skaters were in circles, squares, and oblongs. Next to the carriage ride on the north side, many astonishing evolutions were performed by the skaters. Skipping on skates, and the Turk-cap backwards, were among the most conspicuous. The ice, injured by a partial thaw in some places, was much cut up, yet elegantly dressed females dashed between the hillocks of snow, with great bravery.
At this time the appearance of the river Thames was most remarkable. Vast pieces of floating ice, laden generally with heaps of snow, were slowly carried up and down by the tide, or collected where the projecting banks or the bridges resisted the flow. These accumulations sometimes formed a chain of glaciers, which, uniting at one moment, were at another cracking and bounding against each other in a singular and awful manner with loud noise. Sometimes these ice islands rose one over another, covered with angry foam, and were violently impelled by the winds and waves through the arches of the bridges, with tremendous crashes. Near the bridges, the floating pieces collected about mid-water, or while the tide was less forcible, and ranged themselves on each other; the stream formed them into order by its force as it passed, till the narrowness of the channel increased the power of the flood, when a sudden disruption taking place, the masses burst away, and floated off. The river was frozen over for the space of a week, and a complete Frost Fair held upon it, as will be mentioned presently.
Since the establishment of mail-coaches correspondence had not been so interrupted as on this occasion. Internal communication was completely at a stand till the roads could be in some degree cleared. The entire face of the country was one uniform sheet of snow; no trace of road was discoverable.
The Post-office exerted itself to have the roads cleared for the conveyance of the mails, and the government interfered by issuing instructions to every parish in the kingdom to employ labourers in reopening the ways.