| Description | Candlemas Day is a traditional festival when church candles are blessed and Christians remember Christ's first visit to the Temple. However, 2nd February was already a festival day in pagan times, marking the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. This 'festival of light' confirms that we are still very much in 'mid-winter'.
February was always one of the coldest months in London; lakes and pools would regularly ice over and, on occasion, even the Thames would freeze. In February, Hyde Park's Serpentine would become a convenient makeshift ice-rink. This print commemorates the event in 1826 with a jolly poem:
The Hyde-park river - which no river is,
The Serpentine - which is not serpentine,
When frozen, every skater claims as his,
In right of common, there to intertwine
With countless crowds, and glide upon the ice.
Lining the banks, the timid and unwilling
Stand and look on, while some the fair entice
By telling, "yonder skaters are quadrilling" -
And here the skateless hire the "best skates" for a shilling |